The festival of football that is the World Cup starts today, but there’s always still a buzz around club football – probably because all of the top players at the biggest domestic sides will be taking to the field for their national teams.

Today, a new report on club football’s impact on social media has been released by Italian social media analysts IQUII Sport.

These days, the top of the tables are solid and aren’t going to change any time soon. We all know that Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi and Neymar are out in front for players. We know that Real Madrid and Barcelona on top of all other clubs, too. And underneath that, the top Premier League sides like Manchester United, Chelsea and Manchester City will always be jostling for position.

That means the interest in a list like this has to come from further down the pecking order, and here’s where it gets really interesting: we get to see quite clearly the impact of the big events which took place last season.

It’s obvious from the report that Liverpool are the ones making the biggest splash and have been getting one up on their rivals – especially Manchester City.

‼ It’s online the 9th update of the Report “The European #Football #Club” ‼

???? Find out the analysis on the most grown up #players on #SocialMedia during the entire season
✅ 242 #clubs, 42 sponsor #brands and over 1.2B #fans

Download ???? https://t.co/r2U8HkInrY #SportsBiz pic.twitter.com/8EqdIB1jIQ

— IQUII Sport (@IQUIISport) June 14, 2018

“Think about Mohamed Salah,” says Fabio Lalli, IQUII’s CEO, “during the 2017/18 season, he recorded a fanbase increase of 120.97%, as it is showed in the new slides included in the ninth update.”

Salah had a stunning season, breaking records and picking up awards left, right and centre. He didn’t actually compete in the Egyptian Presidential election, but he still managed to post a strong showing in the results, grabbing over a million votes and coming second. Dragging his team to the Champions League final where he heartbreakingly had to leave the field of play early, denying onlookers the chance to see the match they’d been looking forward to. On social media his increase is marked, more than doubling this season – his meteoric rise to the top shows why.

The same can be said for Loris Karius, who boosted his social media following by more than 1m in just three days owing to his disastrous performance in that same final. It’s hardly a silver lining for the German keeper, and certainly not for his club, but it shows the power of the story.

Indeed, when it comes to Instagram – which is inexorably gaining ground on Twitter as the second biggest platform amongst the top 20 European sides – Liverpool posted the biggest increase, and Jurgen Klopp’s side actually jumped a place in the rankings from last time, bumping Manchester City down a spot. They are the only club in the top 20 to have gained a place in the Instagram rankings, and you can surely put that down to their epic route to Kiev and their heartbreaking failure once they got there.

Weekends without the Reds at Anfield ???? #LFC #Liverpool #LiverpoolFC #Anfield

A post shared by Liverpool Football Club (@liverpoolfc) on Jun 2, 2018 at 4:48am PDT

Liverpool have now broken the 7m follower mark on Instagram (and have grown all the way up to 7.4m), whilst City are currently sitting on 6.9m. It’s a battle the Reds are currently winning, but that can certainly change over time.

“[Our report] tells, through data, what football lovers live on a daily basis: the passion for their clubs, love for their idol, but also the respect for the opponent who played a great season,” says Lalli.

“Huge news is expected for the next season, such as an exclusive access to new data, with a deeper level of detail to support companies in their processes and initiatives. We want to transform emotions and engagement in a measurable and monetizable value.”

A download of the full report is available.