Streams Charts team continues to research and analyze chat logs on Twitch. Previously, we used them to identify the most popular car brands on the platform, as well as the most discussed Marvel franchises during Comic-Con 2022. This time, we have decided to focus on football and found out which summer transfers were the most discussed among streamers and their communities.
We have chosen the most high-profile transfers in June and July 2022, then we searched the names of these players in the Twitch logs and checked the days when their popularity in the chats reached its peak and connected this to the sports news. Manchester United forward Cristiano Ronaldo got a special place in our Top. Although he wasn't transferred to another team, a lot of rumors were reported by various media, so we could not ignore it.
Cristiano Ronaldo — 560.1K mentions in Twitch chats between June 1 and July 31, 2022.
Ronaldo is considered one of all-time greatest players in the world, this is why his super-popularity in Twitch chats is not a surprise. But the jumps in his mentions chart look much more interesting. It should be noted that last season of EPL was not the best in the career of the 37-year-old Portuguese. Manchester United took only sixth place in the season and did not qualify for UEFA Champions League. Ronaldo was not happy about this, after which the media reported on his possible leaving the club. According to rumors, the player was dissatisfied with the transfer policy of MU in the summer season and would like to move to a «stronger club» that will play in the Champions League. All these infomercials about «player dissatisfaction» and other conjectures can be clearly seen in the chart of Ronaldo's mentions between June 10 and 20.
On June 24, there was a huge jump in mentions — Ronaldo's name was written more than 18K times in Twitch chats on that day. The reason for such activity is that the day before the media reported on Ronaldo's possible transfer to FC Bayern: it was the first mention of a particular club he could join.
After the information about FC Bayern, the number of references to Ronaldo rose sharply, but then sharply dropped as well. The German club denied a possible transfer, after which the discussion of the topic shrank — it is clearly visible in the chart segment for the period from June 27 to July 3. A few days later, on July 6, there was a new peak of 11.7K mentions of Ronaldo in Twitch chats. The fact is that the day before the media reported about another club the player could join, FC Barcelona. This rumor provoked a lot of discussions in the community, because previously Ronaldo had long played for Real Madrid, which is considered Barcelona's main rival in the Spanish league. However, as in the case of FC Bayern, information about the transfer of Ronaldo to Catalonia has not been confirmed, which caused the chart to start dropping again.
The third and final interesting period on Ronaldo's chart is from July 13 to 21. After the FC Barcelona case, the situation with Ronaldo's failed transfer literally became a meme. Rumors about dozens of options, where the footballer could transfer, began to appear in the media over and over again: from Chelsea, Roma and Atletico to an «honorary pension» in Saudi Arabia with a contract of $250 million. Sometimes it even turned into outright banter. For example, when the transfer of Ronaldo was jokingly refused by Spartak Moscow, and one of the Faroese clubs offered 20 sheep for the transfer of the footballer. This went on until Manchester United coach Erik ten Hag officially announced that the club had no intention of saying goodbye to Ronaldo.
Jules Koundé — 87.7K mentions
Koundé's chart is not as intense as Ronaldo's, but there are some interesting peaks as well. The first is the peak on June 16, on this day the player was mentioned in the Twitch chat more than 2.1K times. That was because the day before it was reported that Koundé could possibly transfer from FC Sevilla to FC Barcelona, and it provoked a growing interest in the French national team defender. By the end of July the player's transfer was officially confirmed by both clubs, and Barcelona even began to sell T-shirts with his name in the brand store. Hence the increase in mentions of Koundé between July 20 and 28 with 5.7K mentions at peak.
Paul Pogba — 64.5K mentions
French midfielder Paul Pogba had a blazing summer. In June it became known that he would leave Manchester United, where he had spent three seasons. That same month saw the premiere of a documentary series about the footballer called The Pogmentary. According to the extremely low ratings on IMDb, the movie was not very good. All these topics indirectly impacted the number of mentions of the footballer in Twitch chats. The first surge in this metric was on 8 July, when news of Pogba's move to Juventus was announced — this peak of 3.3K mentions is clearly visible on the chart. The other big jump in mentions was on July 26, when the media reported that Pogba got injured in his first match since the return to Juventus.
Erling Haaland — 62.3K mentions
Norwegian striker Erling Haaland also got a lot of mentions on Twitch in June and July. The first peak was on June 13-15, just after Manchester City officially introduced Haaland as the player of the team. The second peak was on July 24, when the Norwegian scored the winning (and only) goal in the game against Bayern Munich as part of the US commercial tour. Finally, the last peak on Haaland's chart was on July 30, with 4.8K mentions, the highest number in the selected time period: Haaland played far from the best game against Liverpool in the FA Community Shield. And he had several goal opportunities, but failed to score. That's what was discussed in the chats on Twitch.
Romelu Lukaku — 54.6K mentions
Belgian striker Romelu Lukaku was also discussed extensively in Twitch chats. At the beginning of June, there were rumors that he might leave Chelsea and transfer to FC Inter Milan, the club he played for in 2019-2021. Lukaku himself has repeatedly stated that he would like to return to Italy. Eventually, both clubs agreed on his transfer, which confirms the activity on the player's chart. Lukaku's maximum peak of mentions in Twitch chats was recorded on June 29 — more than 3.5K messages with his name on the day when he officially returned to Inter Milan.
Who else made it into the Top 10 by mentions on Twitch in June and July?
Dutch defender Matthijs de Ligt had more than 51.2K mentions in two months. He had two peaks, on July 8 (3.2K mentions) and July 19 (2.8K mentions). The first peak was linked with FC Bayern's offer to buy de Ligt from Juventus for €60 million, and the second peak was when the deal was formally concluded.
Robert Lewandowski had more than 40K mentions on Twitch chats in June and July. The peak was on 16 July (2.8K mentions) when FC Bayern announced the Polish striker's move to FC Barcelona.
Italian footballer Federico Chiesa had over 38.4K mentions in Twitch chats in two months. This peak was on July 23 (4K mentions) and is probably related to the release of his updated FUTBIN card. This summer it became known that FC Juventus bought Chiesa's contract from Fiorentina (before that the player was on loan in the Turin club for two years). The player himself finally finished a long rehabilitation after an injury in July and returned to training.
The name of English player Raheem Sterling was mentioned on Twitch 35.3K times in June and July. Peaks were on June 17 (1.3K mentions) and July 13 (1.5K mentions), the first case was a discussion about his possible transfer from Manchester City to FC Chelsea, and in the second one is the day when transfer was officially announced.
French football player of Cameroonian origin Aurélien Tchouameni rounds out our Top 10. Twitch users were actively discussing him at the beginning of June. At the peak, the number of mentions reached 1.4K. This happened on June 7, when they began to discuss Tchouameni's transfer from Monaco to Real Madrid.
Most Popular Channels
We also analyzed the Top 10 Twitch channels where the above-mentioned players were most frequently referred to in the chat. It is interesting that six of them are in Italian, and one each in Spanish, Portuguese, French and English
Most mentions of players were on the channel of Spanish sports journalist gerardromero, who broadcasts in the Sports category and has close ties with FC Barcelona. In two months there were 24.4K mentions of the above-mentioned players. The channel accumulated 3.5 million Hours Watched, and its Peak Viewers number was 34.3K people.
Channels AmalaTV, AJGtv and Juvantibus are also in the top. The first one is the official channel of the largest fan community Fratelli Neroazzurri (Inter Milan), while the second and the third are channels where Juventus fans gather. A lot of references to players were made on AssodiRoma_Official and teladoiotokyo channels, where Italian Roma fans spend their time.
Of course, an active discussion about football transfers also took place on the channels of the footsim player (FIFA / PES) streamers. Among them are Castro_1021, BruceGrannec, ZanoXVII and Pelegrino1993.
