If you know anything about me, you know that I have two hobbies: fishing (one I actively participate in) and football/soccer (one I love to watch). Yesterday my hometeam, FC Zenit (St Petersburg, Russia) got through into the 1/8th of Europa League beating Young Boys (Bern, Switzerland) 1:3 in snowy St. Petersburg at 12°F (-11°C). I follow my team on Twitter, and yesterday also found out that some of Zenit’s players (e.g.: @malafeev16, @shirokovr15). So, I searched Twitter for other football/soccer players, and today since it’s #FollowFriday time again I’d like to bring you a list of the 20 football (soccer) stars every fans must consider following on Twitter. The list is merely alphabetical: full player’s name first, his current (even if on loan) football club second (most of the below-listed players also play on their respective national teams):
1. Sergio Agüero — Atlético Madrid (Spain)
2. Xabi Alonso — Real Madrid (Spain)
3. Jozy Altidore — Villareal (Spain)
4. Nicolas Anelka — Chelsea (England)
5. Alvaro Arbeloa Coca — Real Madrid (Spain)
6. Andrey Arshavin — Arsenal (England)
7. Landon Donovan — Los Angeles Galaxy (USA)
8. Maurice Edu — Glasgow Rangers (Scotland)
9. Samuel Eto’o — Internazionale (Spain)
10. Rio Ferdinand — Manchester United (England)
11. Diego Forlan — Atlético Madrid (Spain)
12. Andrés Iniesta — Barcelona (Spain)
13. Kaká — Real Madrid (Spain)
14. Lukas Podolski — FC Köln (Germany)
15. Carles Puyol — Barcelona (Spain)
16. Sergio Ramos — Real Madrid (Spain)
17. Ronaldinho Gaúcho — Flamengo (Brazil)
18. Cristiano Ronaldo — Real Madrid (Spain)
19. Gilberto Silva — Panathinaikos (Greece)
20. Jack Wilshere — Arsenal (England)
If I have missed your favorite player, please do post about him in the “Comments” are below!
What about the original Ronaldo, Messi or Louis Suarez?
Good question, Riley. I had to pick 20, and since Ronaldo has just finished his carrier I gave my preference to active players. As for Messi and Louis Suarez, do they have original (100% verified to be true) Twitter accounts? There are a number of them for Lionel out there, and I reviewed them all, but couldn’t tell which one would be his true original Twitter account.
Just found out that last summer Klout put together a list of 10 Most Influential World Cup 2010 Players on Twitter. There are 4 on their list who I haven’t mentioned: Cuauhtémoc Blanco, Luis Fabiano, Stuart Holden, and Andrés Guardado. The problem is that the latter two seem to no longer have Twitter accounts, but I’ve just linked to the other two above.
Excellent post, I think Fernando Torres is missing. I’m also a big fan of national Russian football team (Arshavin FTW).
Ronaldo’s profile is @ClaroRonaldo … and the brazilian promisse Neymar is @NJr92
Serginho, thank you for chiming in. Yep, I saw Ronaldo’s account with impressive 1 mln+ followers, but, as mentioned above, didn’t include him because he has just finished his carrier, and I gave my preference to active players… Never heard of Neymar Júnior, but with his ~700k followers (and ~17.7k lists) he is without a doubt a star! Thank you for mentioning him.
Thanks for the list of professional soccer/football players on Twitter Geno! Outside of Longview Indoor Sportsplex I am also involved heavily with tech startups, like Shift.com. I’ve thought for a long time now that somebody should unleash a new Internet startup that indexes all professional athletes on Twitter including: coaches, sports broadcasters, sports commentators, sports reporters and sports handicappers – all categorized and neatly organized by sport. This would allow anyone betting on sports games to easily follow professional athletes on Twitter across multiple sports from a single dashboard. Couple such a service with some Live Streaming Match Videos compatible for mobile phones and I’d like to think we’re onto something special. I give away concepts similar to this one free on a daily basis. I’ve got enough on my platter now to keep me busy for quite some time. Let me know if anybody runs with the concept. I’d at least like a Beta invite 🙂
Viva la beautiful game!