Portugal are the most popular World Cup team on social media FIFA World Cup Russia 2018 Thanks to Cristiano Ronaldo

Russia 2018 promises to be the most digitally accessible World Cup in history and Cristiano Ronaldo's influence has seen Portugal ranked as the most popular team on social networking websites.

The players selected by Fernando Santos have more than 360 million followers collectively on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Ronaldo makes up most of that with 320 million followers alone, while his closest rivals in this regard are Neymar and Lionel Messi with 192 million and 181 million followers respectively.

Spain have been plunged into sporting chaos by Julen Lopetegui's dismissal, although La Roja remain the third most popular team in social media terms.

The squad boast 333 million followers collectively and the group contains the most players in the ranking of the 23 most popular players at the tournament.

Andres Iniesta has 73 million followers and Sergio Ramos has 62 million, whilst Gerard Pique and David de Gea follow just behind with 54 and 27 million respectively.

Sergio Busquets is the anomaly within the team, with the Barcelona midfielder not present on social media in any sense.

Barcelona and Real Madrid can account for 40 percent of the players on the aforementioned list, with only Antoine Griezmann present from LaLiga in addition to those players.

ECCO have conducted the studies by analysing the social network activities of the players participating in the World Cup.

Such studies have seen that 736 players involved in Russia have a grand total of 2.5 billion followers.