Wikipedia:Top 25 Report/July 8 to 14, 2018

The Top 25 Report

This page contains material that is kept because it is considered humorous.
Such material is not meant to be taken seriously.

Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (July 8 to 14, 2018)[edit]

Prepared with commentary by igordebraga

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We Are the Champions, My Friend[edit]

One last FIFA World Cup-heavy list, even if the final happening on a Sunday ensures next week will still feature some more of the tournament. Along with a blockbuster transaction that happened after a superstar was out of the Russian fields, football is even present in an incident where a Thai team was stranded in a flooded cave. Otherwise, we have tennis in Wimbledon, American politics, celebrities and blockbusters, Indian movies and Netflix shows, and that death list that just won't go.

For the week of July 8 to 15, 2018, the 25 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the WP:5000 report were:

Rank	Article	Views	Notes
1	2018 FIFA World Cup	2,424,759	The most beloved month for football fans ended today in Moscow with the French team winning their second title. Plenty of good moments happened, though the organization should be ashamed of the cruel and unusual punishment that is featuring "Seven Nation Army" in every game.
2	Croatia	2,259,554	A former Yugoslav nation smaller than 41 of the U.S. states and less than half the population of London, that is gathering huge attention for the unexpected success of its national football team. In the meantime, people have discovered many interesting things about Croatia, such as their blonde president who went to the World Cup out of her own salary, and the rallying cry with fascist roots.
3	Hailey Baldwin	2,122,321	This model, daughter of actor Stephen (and subsequently niece of Alec and cousin to another model, Ireland), has announced her engagement to Justin Bieber (#21). Hope she can put some reason into his head!
4	Brett Kavanaugh	1,804,185	The newest proposed member of the Supreme Court of the United States, nominated by President Trump to replace the retiring Anthony Kennedy.
5	Cristiano Ronaldo	1,353,021	CR7 was not in the World Cup final (and seems unlikely he'll lead Portugal there in 2022, when he'll be 37), but still gathered loads of views through the week as it was confirmed he is going to Juventus (#16) for an incredible €100 million plus additional expenses.
6	List of FIFA World Cup finals	1,140,242	Croatia (#2, #10), became the 13th country to contest for the World Cup, and the victorious French team (pictured) got its second title, matching two teams they beat in the playoffs (Argentina and Uruguay).
7	FIFA World Cup	1,120,613	The 21st edition ended today. The next one is sadly more than "just" 4 years from now, given it will be in November-December so the players don't get boiled by the scorching Middle Eastern summer (just one of the many, many downsides of giving the hosting rights to Qatar!).
8	Ant-Man and the Wasp	927,310	After a high stakes interplanetary war that does not end well, Marvel decided to just let viewers have fun again at their movies with a return to this size-shifting superhero, now joined by size-shifting superheroine with wings and blasters, fighting among other adversaries an intangible girl. Ant-Man and the Wasp got great reviews and is already nearing $300 million worldwide (numbers that will only grow as it hits European markets that decided to release the movie after the World Cup was over).
9	Stephen Baldwin	919,838	Stephen's career might be in a downfall (from Born on the Fourth of July and The Usual Suspects to Christploitation films such as God's Club and Faith of Our Fathers?!), but the fact his daughter (#3) is marrying Justin Bieber (#21) brought in some attention.
10	Croatia national football team	829,225	Known for their checkered shirts (compared to either tablecloths or racing flags), the Croats have a distinction of having surprised the football world twice. In their 1998 debut, Davor Suker and friends went all the way to the World Cup semifinals against hosts France and scored first before a comeback, but then won the third place match. 20 years later, the squad led by Luka Modric (#13) managed to go one stage and position further: Croatia won a comeback in the semifinals against England before losing the final against that same France. Part of it must have been exhaustion: all the previous knockout games went to extra time, meaning the Croats played the equivalent of seven games in six!
11	Kylian Mbappé	803,622	Mbappé might not be on the same heights as Pelé, but like the greatest footballer ever the Frenchman already made a huge impact in the World Cup before even turning 20, scoring three goals (one of them in the final) as Les Bleus got their second title. For such, Mbappé was chosen as the tournament's best young player.
12	Deaths in 2018	729,479	"I sung my song to Mr. Jimmy Yeah, and he said one word to me, and that was 'dead'"
13	Luka Modrić	723,341	In May, Modrić was, along with Cristiano Ronaldo (#5), part of the Real Madrid squad that unsurprisingly won the UEFA Champions League. Two months later, he has pulled off something even more impressive: as captain and centerpiece of the Croatian team (#10), led his compatriots all the way to the FIFA World Cup final. For all his efforts (that included 2 goals, one assist, more than 65 km ran and 500 passes), FIFA gave Modrić the Golden Ball as best player of the World Cup.
14	Kevin Anderson (tennis)	679,641	Along with the World Cup, another sporting event played on grass happened this month, the 2018 Wimbledon Championships. Hailing from South Africa, Anderson had an improbable run to the finals, beating defending champion Roger Federer before an interminable semifinal (6 hours, 36 minutes!) against our #22. No wonder he couldn't then beat another tennis legend, Novak Djokovic, in the decision, but certainly became the moral champion.
15	Tham Luang cave rescue	678,290	Going from footballers playing the games of their lives (#1) to footballers literally fighting for their lives. Thailand might have no tradition on the sport, but seeing a whole junior team trapped in a flooded cave for more than two weeks caused international commotion and brought in military forces and such to save them. The boys are thankfully alive, even if still hospitalized after such a taxing experience.
16	Juventus F.C.	673,069	Turin's Vecchia Signora ("Old Lady") is the biggest winner of the Italian championship, a total of 34 national titles - including the last seven! Maybe the streak will only go further as Cristiano Ronaldo (#5) joins World Cup champion Blaise Matuidi and runner-up Mario Mandzukic, the latter of whom was there when Ronaldo's Real Madrid beat Juventus in the 2017 UEFA Champions League Final.
17	Gareth Southgate	665,379	The English Team might have finished with the same fourth place from the last time they went to the semifinals, but just seeing the squad going so far has already made supporters petition for coach Southgate to get a knighthood. He already got his very own tube station!
18	Sanju	664,239	Yet another entry for the biopic on Bollywood action star Sanjay Dutt.
19	Rafael Nadal	651,279	Nadal couldn't beat rival Novak Djovokic in the Wimbledon semifinal, but retained the top spot at the ATP ranking and managed to enter the Top 25 Report instead of the winner. Either one seems good enough!
20	England national football team	643,611	It wasn't this time that England got their second World Cup title, and they even lost the third place match to Belgium. Still, the Three Lions won their first penalty shootout and had 2018's top scorer with Harry Kane's 6 goals... only one of whom wasn't over the lowly Panama and Tunisia, and 3 coming from penalty kicks, but that's a detail.
21	Justin Bieber	640,886	One of the most divisive musical artists of today, for both questionable music and even worse attitude. At least Bieber got all these views for something positive, his engagement to #3.
22	John Isner	588,190	The Croats (#10) can share some durability stories with this American tennis player. Eight years after winning the longest tennis match ever (11 hours across 3 days!), Isner had another seemingly endless bout in the same Wimbledon grass, his lost semifinal to our #14.
23	Sacred Games (TV series)	588,190	India already brings in their movies (#18) and their celebrities to the Top 25, so local television is a natural progression. A Netflix adaptation of a local thriller, it stars Radhika Apte (pictured).
24	Serena Williams	578,770	Just one year after giving birth to her daughter, the youngest of the Williams sisters seems to have recovered enough to reach the Wimbledon finals. Just not enough to win, as Angelique Kerber took home the title (but not a spot on our list, finishing with a modest #37).
25	Elon Musk	556,298	Musk is ambitious and has achieved many breakthroughs, but sometimes he's just not good enough, as his mini-submarine that would rescue the Thai boys trapped in a cave (#15) was useless.

Exclusions[edit]

This list excludes the Wikipedia main page, non-article pages (such as redlinks), and anomalous entries (such as DDoS attacks or likely automated views). Since mobile view data became available to the Report in October 2014, we exclude articles that have almost no mobile views (5–6% or less) or almost all mobile views (94–95% or more) because they are very likely to be automated views based on our experience and research of the issue. Please feel free to discuss any removal on the talk page if you wish.

Exo (band) - EXO-Ls, explicitly leaving remarks that you're gonna try to game the system is not a good idea. As if the high views with low mobile percentages weren't already a signal... (and the BTS Army is equally guilty!)

Note: If you came here from the Signpost article, please take any discussion of exclusions to this article's talk page.