BBC SPORT
A gallery of Lionel Messi celebrating Argentina’s World Cup win has become the most-liked Instagram post ever.
The footballer – who led his team to their first World Cup triumph in 36 years – received more than 57 million likes for his collection of photos.
Argentina defeated France on penalties in Sunday’s World Cup final in Qatar.
Messi’s Instagram post scored over a million more likes more than the previous record-breaking post – held by a simple picture of an egg.
Wait, what was that about an egg?
The previous holder of the most-liked status was indeed an egg.
When it first appeared it seemed to be some kind of protest vote against celebrity – people were urged to engage with the picture in the hope of toppling the then-record holder, Kylie Jenner.
The make-up mogul previously took the record for her 2018 photo announcing her baby Stormi, which has since collected 18 million likes.
Jenner was the first woman to get 300 million followers on the social media site – a milestone also achieved by Messi.
OK, but that still doesn’t explain the egg
There was a lot of speculation about who was behind the @world_record_egg Instagram account and how it managed to attract so many likes so quickly.
Some said it was a marketing ploy from a large company that had bought followers – but British advertising executive Chris Godfrey has since claimed he created it, along with two others, and that their sole purpose was to get as many likes as possible.
But while the egg overtook Jenner’s record – totalling as many as 56 million likes at the time of writing – it has finally been surpassed by a rival with several world records in his own right: Lionel Messi.
After the World Cup final, Guinness World Records posted a series of records broken by the victor, noting Messi had surpassed Germany’s Lothar Matthäus for the record of most World Cup matches played, with 26 – as well as four other records:
- 11 – most World Cup Man of the Match awards
- 19 – most World Cup appearances as captain
- 5 – most appearances in World Cup tournaments by a male player
- First person to assist (a goal) at five different World Cups
