NEW YORK (AP) – As the World Cup neared its end this week, Twitter had a field day with Brazil’s humiliating 7-1 loss to Germany in the semifinals, which became the most-discussed sports game in the social network’s history.
While Germany barreled down on a stunned Brazilian team to score five goals in the match’s first half, quips such as #ThingMoreLikelyThanBrazilWinningTheWorldCup and #TeamsBetterThanBrazil became top trending topics on Twitter. Teams better than Brazil, naturally, produced lots of photos of children’s soccer teams, and at least one of a team of puppies.
Here’s a look at how the World Cup fared online this week:
– “RED WEDDING”
With Neymar nursing a back injury, Brazil was already down its star player on Tuesday. But as click-fishing websites like to say, you wouldn’t believe what happened next. Germany delivered goal after goal (including four in a seven-minute span) that had Brazilian fans sobbing, yelling insults at their team and sitting in stunned silence. It may have been around the fourth or fifth goal – hard to tell, it was all happening so fast – that tweets such as “This is the World Cup’s Red Wedding” began popping up, a reference to the infamous “Game of Thrones” episode in which several key characters are slaughtered.