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Women's World Cup Twitter trends: Brazil's Marta most popular player

By Alex Butler
Brazilian striker Marta (R) is not active on Twitter, but has been the most mentioned player on the social media platform during the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup. Photo by Tolga Bozoglu/EPA-EFE
Brazilian striker Marta (R) is not active on Twitter, but has been the most mentioned player on the social media platform during the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup. Photo by Tolga Bozoglu/EPA-EFE

June 21 (UPI) -- Brazil's Marta edged U.S. stars Alex Morgan and Megan Rapinoe as the most popular player on Twitter during the group stage of the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup.

The Brazilian striker scored her record-setting 17th World Cup goal in a 1-0 win against Italy Tuesday in Valenciennes, France. She has more goals than any man or women in World Cup history.

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The 33-year-old has been the most mentioned player on the social media platform since the 2019 Women's World Cup began on June 7.

Morgan ranks second on the list of most mentioned players, followed by Marta's Brazil teammate Cristiane Rozeira. Rapinoe is the third most popular player at the World Cup. Chile's Claudia Endler rounds out the top-five most popular players at the tournament.

When it comes to the top teams, the U.S. is the most tweeted about squad. Brazil ranks second in that category, followed by Argentina, England and host France.

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The U.S. women's team was also part of the most talked about match on Twitter when it beat Thailand 13-0 on June 11 in Reims. Brazil was involved in three of the top five most talked about matches, with its 3-0 win against Jamaica in Group C being the second most tweeted about match. Brazil's 3-2 loss to Australia was the third most talked about match, followed by its win against Italy.

The USA's 3-0 win against Chile in Group F was the fifth most talked about match in the group stage.

When it came to the top moments, Cristiane's hat-trick completing score against Jamaica took the top spot. The Brazilian star also had the second most popular moment for her head ball score against Australia.

U.S. women's star Carli Lloyd had the third most popular moment on Twitter for her stoppage time score against Thailand. She netted the final goal of the lopsided group stage victory. Lloyd's teammate Mallory Pugh had the fifth most popular moment on the social media platform for her 84th minute tally against Thailand.

Marta's record-breaking goal against Italy was the fourth most popular Twitter moment.

The World Cup's leading scorer is not active on Twitter, but has nearly two million Instagram followers and 350,000 Facebook followers. Morgan has 6.4 million Instagram followers, 3.6 million Twitter followers and nearly 3.4 million Facebook followers, totaling nearly 13.5 million followers overall as the most popular women's soccer player on social media.

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The 2019 Women's World Cup resumes with the round of 16 this weekend, starting with Germany battling Nigeria at 11:30 a.m. EDT Saturday in Grenoble. Brazil battles France at 3 p.m. EDT Sunday in what is likely to be a very popular match on Twitter.

The U.S. takes on Spain in the round of 16 at noon EDT Monday in Reims.

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