Last week on the eve of Ireland’s rugby international against South Africa we took a look at the presence and activity of the Irish starting 15 on twitter.
Today as the soccer team prepare for their massive game against Scotland in Glasgow on Friday night we turn our attention to the likely starting XI on the micro blogging site.
While all of the rugby players had a presence and Jonathan Sexton was the only one without any real activity, the soccer twitterscape, for Ireland at least is a lot more barren.
Soccer players attract huge interest on social media and a number of them from Christiano Ronaldo with 31.7 million followers to Joey Barton with 2.7 million are barely able to sneeze without it appearing in the mainstream media.
Despite the power this gives, or perhaps in trepidation of it, only David Meyler, Darron Gibson and Jeff Hendrick of the likely starters are involved.
James McClean of course has a storied history with the site and may yet re-engage, though last weekend’s kerfuffle over his reasons for not wearing a poppy will make him and those close to him think long and hard before doing so.
The Everton contingent of players missing through injury, including James McCarthy and Seamus Coleman would boost the profile of the team but if you are looking for an inside track or messages of thanks to the fans for their support the best man of those most likely to play is David Meyler.
Darron Gibson has the biggest following with 138,000, beaten by four of the rugby players. His only tweet of this week though is a retweet of his wife’s selfie saying how she had enjoyed a night out with him.
There is no shortage of coverage from fan sites such as the team at Come on You Boys in Green and the FAI maintains a strong active presence as well.
That follows through to general activity on twitter around soccer as well, as was evidenced last night when news of an alleged incident between a fan and an unnamed assistant manager of the team sent mobiles and tablets into a frenzy.
For the record here is the list of possible Irish starters tomorrow and their activity.
| Irish Soccer’s Twitter Profile | ||||
|
Followers |
Tweets last 7 days |
Total Tweets |
||
|
1 |
David Forde |
0 |
0 |
0 |
|
2 |
David Meyler @davidmeyler7 |
29,800 |
21 |
4,813 |
|
3 |
Stephen Ward |
0 |
0 |
0 |
|
4 |
John O’Shea |
0 |
0 |
0 |
|
5 |
Richard Keogh |
0 |
0 |
0 |
|
6 |
Darron Gibson @D_Gibson4 |
138,000 |
1 |
682 |
|
7 |
Jeff Hendrick @JeffHendrick92 |
23,700 |
1 |
1,378 |
|
8 |
Aidan McGeady @AidMcG86 |
5,157 |
0 |
6 |
|
9 |
James McClean @JMcC_23 |
Closed |
0 |
Closed |
|
10 |
Robbie Keane |
0 |
0 |
0 |
|
11 |
Jonathon Walters |
0 |
0 |
0 |
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