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Cristiano Ronaldo is arguably the most popular athlete in the world. He has 53.3 million Instagram followers, 41.3 million Twitter followers, and an absurd 110 million Facebook followers. With that kind of following, you would think he would be a shoo-in to win any sort of online popularity contest, especially one centered around the world of football as Goal.com’s Legends World Cup was. But no, Cristiano Ronaldo lost in the final of said contest to Hungarian legend Ferenc Puskas, who died in 2006.
16 legendary footballers were selected to partake in the Legends World Cup, including predictably big names such as Lionel Messi, Zinedine Zidane, and Diego Maradona.
The “tournament” was a single elimination knockout bracket in which one legend face off against the other for the right to be named the greatest footballer of all time. Match ups were completely decided by online voting, and so were pretty much popularity contests.
There were some pretty notable results throughout the tournament. Cristiano Ronaldo beat out Lionel Messi in the semifinal of the tournament. Zinedine Zidane beat out Pele in the quarterfinals. And Brazilian stars Ronaldinho and Ronaldo didn’t make it past the first round.
Puskas on game day for Real Madrid. Photo: @GoalUK | Twitter
The most stunning of all, however, was the run of former Real Madrid player and Hungarian international Ferenc Puskas. The man whom the FIFA Puskas Award for Goal of the Year is named after beat out Diego Maradona and Zinedine Zidane on his way to the final against Cristiano Ronaldo, where he dominated the Portuguese star by 38 percentage points (69% to Ronaldo’s 31%).
A huge factor in Puskas’ victory was his native country of Hungary. 97,323 Hungarians voted for their national hero, 1% of Hungary’s population and almost half of the total vote in the final (192,471).
Puskas’ win really is quite an amazing event. In an era dominated by social media, when people are obsessed with the here and now, a player who peaked in the 1950s and 60s and died a decade ago has beat one of the greatest players of all time, who is still playing today, in a popularity contest. It still seems impossible just thinking about it, but it has happened.
The internet is a crazy place.
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