Following Sunday’s dramatic World Cup final, one question puzzled searchers and pundits alike: what provoked France’s star striker Zinedine Zidane to headbutt an Italian opponent in the chest? After the match, many of the over one billion viewers turned their attention to the Search box.
Searches on Zidane rose over 1,000% as curious fans tried to figure out the motivation for his red-card-worthy behavior. We also saw surges for “zidane head butt,” “zidane video,” and most importantly, “what did materazzi say to zidane.” Marco Materazzi may have said something to set Zidane off, but he definitely inspired a flurry of searches. Queries on the Italian defender went from zero into the thousands.
Colorful flares also burned bright, wielded by soccer enthusiasts throughout a celebratory Italy. Buzz on the Azzurri players rippled the back of the Buzz net as Fabio Grosso (+443%), Fabio Cannavaro (+336%), Andrea Pirlo (+236%), Gennaro Gattuso (+234%), and Gianluigi Buffon (+208%) all shot skyward.
Queries on World Cup history jumped 228% as fans put the 2006 event in proper historical context. Supporters of the Italian side who remember the pain of losing on penalty kicks sent searches on World Cup 1994 up 223%. But not everyone was looking in the rear view—searches on 2010 World Cup were up 252%, and fútbol fanatics assessing the real long view sent buzz on the 2014 World Cup up 251%.
With so many story lines wrapped up in the world’s largest sporting event, we saw a stunning array of Search spikes…
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