- Tom Jerkin
- Technology reporter – BBC News
A group of photos of Lionel Messi celebrating Argentina’s World Cup victory have become the most popular Instagram post of all time.
The footballer, who led his country to their first World Cup title in 36 years, has received more than 57 million likes for a set of photos he posted on his official account.
In this way, Messi broke the previous record, surpassing the million likes of an egg image that aroused the interest of followers years ago, as it garnered a large number of fans.
Argentina defeated France on penalties in the FIFA World Cup final on Sunday in Qatar.
Hey, what About the egg?
It was an egg, the previous most liked post.
The image was created as a kind of protest vote once morest celebrities, as its creators urged people to like the image in hopes of dethroning the then record holder, Kylie Jenner.
The famous cosmetics brand owner set the record for her 2018 photo when she announced the birth of her son, Stormi, and the photo has since collected 18 million likes.
Jenner was the first woman to reach 300 million followers on the social networking site, which Messi also achieved.
Who is behind the egg?
There has been a lot of speculation regarding who is 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 big company that bought followers, but UK executive Chris Godfrey has since claimed he launched the experiment with two other partners, and that their only goal was to get as many likes as possible.
But while the egg has surpassed Jenner’s record, with the photo totaling 56 million likes at the time of writing, it has finally been surpassed by a competitor who holds several world records in his own right: Lionel Messi.
After the World Cup final, Guinness World Records published a series of records that Messi broke, noting that he surpassed German Lothar Matthews in the number of matches he played in the World Cup, with 26 matches, in addition to four other records:
- 11 – Most World Cup Man of the Match awards
- 19 – Most World Cup appearances as captain
- 5 – Most appearances in the World Cup tournaments by a male player
- The first person to assist an assist in five different World Cup tournaments
With the success of his latest set of photos on Instagram, Messi has yet another record to add to his accomplishments.
