FIFA World Cup opener: Brazil 3, Croatia 1, Twitter 12 million, Neymar 1.65 lakh

Paris Hosts Brazils controversial 31 win over Croatia in the opening game of the World Cup generated massive Twitter traffic with more than 122million tweets Brazil hero Neymar topped the Twitter charts as football fans tweeted during the opening match of a World Cup set to represent a landmark in the development of social mediaAccording to Twitter who have 255million users around the world tweeters from more than 150 countries participated in the exchangesThe Barcelona strikers two goals in Brazils controversial 31 win over Croatia ensured he was the most mentioned player on the microblogging site according to Twitters own monitoring of Thursday nights big kickoff in Sao PauloBrazils forward Neymar celebrates his second goal against Croatia during the 2014 FIFA World Cup Group A football match at the Corinthians Arena in Sao Paulo on Thursday PicAFPThis World Cup is widely expected to be the most tweeted event ever and the stats from the first of the 64 matches suggested the tournament will have no trouble exceeding the 150 million tweets sent about the 2012 London OlympicsNeymers matchwinning performance was a personal triumph in both footballing and online profile termsThe spikyhaired 22yearold added 165000 followers to his NeymarJr account over the course of the tournaments opening day taking his total following to a heavyweight 11 millionBut he is still panting in the digital slipstream of Cristiano RonaldoThe Real Madrid stars reputation as the world player of the year combined with his sex symbol status with both gay and straight audiences have made him the undisputed king of the football twittersphereAt last count Ronaldo was headed for 27 million followers more than two and a half times the population of his native PortugalThe Twitter data on the Brazil 2014 opener underlined how social media is rapidly transforming the way international sport is consumed with numerous fans clearly spending as much time commentating on smartphones and tablets as actually watching the matchThe millions squeezing their views into the Twitter limit of 140 characters would have been matched possibly exceeded by others voicing their opinions on Facebook Chinas Weibo and other fastgrowing social media around the worldGooooooaaaal Brazil The number of tweets during the 90 minutes was roughly 50 percent higher than the 84 million registered during last months allSpanish Champions League final between Real Madrid and Atletico MadridAnd the potential for further growth of the global online conversation accompanying major matches is massiveA number of tweets registered on Thursday evening compares with a global television audience that FIFA was hoping would approach one billion people World footballs governing body estimates that 32 billion people roughly half the worlds population watched at least one match during the last World Cup in South AfricaTwitter says it has 255 million active users around the world Sina Weibo reports more than twice that numberChelseas Belgian star Eden Hazard was credited with authoring the most retweeted post of the night an affectionate message of congratulations to his club teammate Oscar who scored a virtuoso goal to seal Brazils winCongratulation to my bro oscar11 for your goal had been retweeted 14000 times by Friday morningMany of Thursday nights missives were less than complimentary about the performance of Japanese referee Yuichi Nishimura who gave Brazil a debatable penalty with the match evenly poised at 11But the ones which were shared most widely offered slim pickings for aficionados of a wellcrafted tweet making a point in pithy or witty fashionAfter Hazards salute to his teammate the next most popular ones came from Keaton and Wesley Stromberg members of American boyband Emblem3Their contributions to posterity included Game day Keaton accompanied by photo of him in a Brazil shirt and Gooooooaaaal Brazil WesleyJapanese referee Yuichi Nishimura featured in many posts following his decision to award a penalty despite there being no evident contact between Brazil striker Fred and Croatian centreback Dejan LovrenIt isnt the first time that a Croatia game at a World Cup finals has attracted the wrong type of headlines for the refereeEnglishman Graham Poll managed to book Croat Josip Simunic three times in their group game at the 2006 finals with Australia before finally sending him offPoll nevertheless took to Twitter to express his opinion of Nishimuras decisionVery soft penalty People say big teams get the big decisions Thats a prime example Not a penalty for me tweeted PollHowever 50yearold Poll was kinder when Oscar scored a late goal to make the scoreline 31Quality goal to finish the game Ref will be relieved and I think he get another game One mistake not 3