FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022: Round of 16 Matches

The FIFA World Cup Round of 16 has left us with five European teams, two South American teams, and one African team who qualified for the quarterfinals. The balance of the matches has been very different: from the tension of the penalty shootout that led to Croatia and Morocco winning to the comfortable victories of Portugal, Brazil, and England.

Let’s review some of the highlights beyond soccer of the Qatar 2022 last 16 round.

Performance on the pitch, growth on social

There is no better showcase of soccer than the World Cup. It’s an opportunity for soccer fans to discover unknown talents and start following them on social networks.
We highlighted three players who have had great success on social media after their amazing performances on the pitch.

Gonçalo Ramos
Imagine this: your first game as a national team starter is in the Round of 16 of a FIFA World Cup, and you score a hat-trick. Portugal’s Gonçalo Ramos made that dream come true with a 6-1 win over Switzerland and saw his Instagram followers increase by 69% in less than 24 hours.

Yassine Bono
For the first time in its history, Morocco has qualified for the quarterfinals of a World Cup. Yassine Bono, Morocco’s goalkeeper, saved three penalties in the shootout against Spain. The Sevilla player has 2.8 million followers on Instagram — 409K followers were added following the victory.

Gue-Sung Cho
On the day the FIFA World Cup kicked off, Gue-Sung Cho had 31K followers on Instagram. Today, the South Korean player has 2.6 million followers. After his team’s debut in Qatar, he gained 476K followers; after the win against Cameroon, he gained 455K followers; and after qualifying for the round of 16, he gained 358K. Cho’s team missed out on a place in the quarterfinals, but he has become one of Qatar’s stars in the social media universe.

Global Ranking: World Cup Players

Blinkfire’s Global Ranking is one of the best ways to compare social media data across teams, leagues, and athletes. Here are the top 10 players who’s teams qualified for the quarterfinals — based on total followers across Instagram.

Instagram

Blinkfire’s API in Qatar

For several years now, our customers have connected their business intelligence tools with our API to analyze, transform, and report social media and sponsorship statistics.

We connected our Blinkfire Reporting API with Google Data Studio to understand how FIFA World Cup engagement on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and Facebook has since the start of the event.

In terms of total daily engagement and per post engagement, Instagram is the most successful social network for FIFA. The average engagement for the Round of 16 was 253K followed by 56K engagements on TikTok. In terms of video views, Instagram is also the network with the best results, with an average of 1.4 million views per post.

BrandSpotter™ favorites

BrandSpotter™, our proprietary and patented AI and CV technology, not only detects brands but also assets and scenes. Here are some of our favorites from the round of 16.

Stay updated on the FIFA World Cup — visit our blog for more great content. And, if you’re interested in learning more about blinkfire, visit us at blinkfire.com.