The world’s most widely viewed sporting event has been a hot topic on the social network throughout the tournament, despite China’s national team not having come close to qualifying, and a general lack of engagement with users: at the start of the tournament, only two national teams, England and Germany, had official Weibo accounts, according to social media marketing firm Mailman.

Offline, football fans have been driving a booming market in forged sick notes so they can stay up and watch the games, while the grief of one’s team losing has been linked to a rash of suicides. In the charts below, we examine whether online support came close to this level of intensity.