2018 World Cup’s top-three most-talked about footballers in Russian media

Portugal's Ronaldo was mentioned more than 37,000 in the Russian media throughout the world championship

MOSCOW, July 16. /TASS/. Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo and Russia’s Artyom Dzyuba, Igor Akenfeev made up the top three of the most frequently mentioned footballers by the Russian media during the 2018 FIFA World Cup, according to data from Russia-based Medialogy monitoring and analysis company.

The data from the company indicates that Portuguese striker Ronaldo was mentioned more than 37,000 in the Russian media throughout the world championship, which ran between June 14 and July 15.

Ronaldo is followed by Russian forward Artyom Dzyuba (some 36,800 references in the national media), and his teammate, Igor Akenfeev, who is also the goalkeeper and the captain of the Russian football squad, completed the list of the top-three with 30,400 mentions.

The rest of the top 10 ranks as follows: Argentina’s forward Lionel Messi came in fourth with 29,700 mentions in the media; Russian midfielder Denis Cheryshev took fifth place with 28,100 references; Russian midfielder Alexander Golovin was sixth with 21,400 mentions; Egypt’s forward Mohamed Salah came seventh with 19,400 references; Brazilian forward Neymar eighth (16,700); Croatian defender ninth Damagoj Vida (15,200); and Russian forward Fyodor Smolov tenth (almost 15,000).

This summer Russia hosted its first-ever FIFA World Cup, which kicked off in Moscow with a remarkable opening show at Luzhniki Stadium on the evening of June 14 and ended with a spectacular final match, played also at the Luzhniki Stadium, where France soundly defeated Croatia 4-2 to clinch the much-coveted World Cup Trophy.

The country selected 11 host cities to be the venues for the matches of the 2018 World Cup and they were Moscow, St. Petersburg, Sochi, Kazan, Saransk, Kaliningrad, Volgograd, Rostov-on-Don, Nizhny Novgorod, Yekaterinburg and Samara.

The national football team of hosts Russia managed to make it to the quarterfinals stage of this world championship, where Croatia edged them out in a 4-3 penalty shootout on July 7 at the Fisht Arena in Sochi.