Wikipedia:Top 25 Report/December 18 to 24, 2022

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 (December 18 to 24, 2022)[edit]

Prepared with commentary by Soulbust and Igordebraga

⭠ Last week's report Next week's report →

The World Cup concludes as the GOAT of GOATs leads this week's Report.

Rank	Article	Views	Notes/about
1	Lionel Messi	7,000,827	Scoring two goals and assisting on another in the 2022 FIFA World Cup final (#17), Messi helped La Albiceleste (#9) lift their third FIFA World Cup trophy on Sunday. For many fans, this put the finishing touches on his case to be football's GOAT 🐐.
2	Kylian Mbappé	4,688,225	The French phenom tried his damnedest to get the French national team their second consecutive World Cup trophy. While his three goals were not enough for the win, they did help him secure his spot as the tournament's top goalscorer. His opponents in the 2026 edition (#14) should be on the lookout for an even hungrier Mbappé.
3	Avatar: The Way of Water	3,699,324	Preventing a top 10 sweep by the World Cup, James Cameron (pictured) has once again cashed in at the box office as his latest film opened at #1. However, his Way of Water will have to settle for third on this list.
4	2022 FIFA World Cup	2,837,301	Marred by all sorts of controversy off the pitch, the actual games of the World Cup's latest edition proved to be some of the most exciting in recent memory.
5	FIFA World Cup	2,798,526	As viewers were glued to the screen throughout the 2022 tournament, many readers were also curious about the competition in general.
6	List of most-liked Instagram posts	2,498,373	The GOAT of football also happens to be the GOAT of Instagram. After hoisting the World Cup Trophy, Messi posted an image of him doing just that. It surpassed the Instagram egg to become the most-liked in the history of the platform and in fact, half of the top 10 are Messi's posts.
7	List of FIFA World Cup finals	1,836,904	2022 really delivered quite possibly the best game on this list: a back-and-forth 3–3 draw decided in penalties. Lots of Argentina fans happy to see the team log its third victory in six appearances on this list. The opposing French were of course the previous winners (Ousmane Dembélé pictured with the WC trophy back in 2018).
8	Cristiano Ronaldo	1,718,988	Even though his team was knocked out in the quarter-finals, Ronaldo proved to be popular among Wikipedia readers. His rivalry with Messi probably surged his pageviews, as even the most ardent Ronaldo fans realized Messi likely ended the debate for most fans.
9	Argentina national football team	1,585,787	CAMPEONES DEL MUNDO
10	Emiliano Martínez	1,526,712	Emi Martínez showed a lot of gamesmanship throughout the cup, and while Mbappé's brilliance couldn't be denied, Dibu was able to make what might go down as the most iconic and important save in World Cup history en route to a Golden Glove.
11	Alexis Mac Allister	1,426,599	The central midfielder played an important role in helping Argentina secure its third championship, but readership on his article was probably boosted from his response to his girlfriend's Instagram post congratulating him getting lost in translation. (and his brother is named Kevin, but is not Macaulay Culkin)
12	Diego Maradona	1,425,618	A lot of Argentina fans may now fully accept the torch getting passed down from Maradona to Messi, as the latter helped deliver what the former did 36 years ago.
13	Avatar (2009 film)	1,394,217	The original Avatar starring Sam Worthington (pictured) is naturally getting interest from those revisiting the world of Pandora in The Way of Water.
14	2026 FIFA World Cup	1,376,944	And ten spots down from the just concluded World Cup, we have the upcoming edition. This time football fans (or soccer fans since this will be the second World Cup hosted in the U.S.) will only have to wait 3 and a half years as opposed to a full 4. Still a long wait, but with 48 teams playing across 3 nations, it'll likely be worth it.
15	Argentina	1,322,601	Seeing their national team win was an incredible sight for much of the country. Bonkers celebrations ensued as 4 million people swarmed the streets of Buenos Aires. Certainly a relief for a country that started the 21st century with the economy collapsing (with the last decade being particularly rough) and needs some joy.
16	Jenna Ortega	1,179,077	The star of #24 lands in the Top 25 again as fans have raved about her performance as the titular Wednesday.
17	2022 FIFA World Cup final	1,015,781^[1]	Hosted at Lusail Stadium (pictured), the 2022 FIFA World Cup final was one of the best matches of all time. Kinda feel bad for those who picked the final as their first introduction to the sport, because how does it get better than this?
18	Deaths in 2022	962,353	This list always finds a way to land within the Top 25. (We are running out of songs.)
19	Franco Harris	949,390	This 4× Super Bowl champion and Pittsburgh Steelers great, best known for the Immaculate Reception and logging over 10,000 rushing yards with Pittsburgh, unfortunately joined the list above this past week.
20	2018 FIFA World Cup	902,619	While #4 represents the fascination of the present and #14 looks ahead to the future, #20 on the list looks back at the past. For fans of the French national team, this was a much better experience.
21	Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery	898,147	In another demonstration that Rian Johnson is a great filmmaker in spite of the massive rift he caused with Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Daniel Craig is back as investigator Benoit Blanc in another entertaining whodunit titled after a song (a Beatles one now, following Radiohead), that came out on Netflix after a limited theatrical release - which brought in much of an audience, so our streaming overlords could've cashed in big numbers with a wide release, as if they weren't in need of some extra money...
22	Ángel Di María	866,702	Quien te cortó tus alas, mí ángel? The only other Argentinian alongside #1 who remained from the team that lost the 2014 FIFA World Cup Final is this striker, who scored the second goal in the final against France.
23	Paris Saint-Germain F.C.	859,628	The team of #1, #2 and Neymar, whose country might still be the biggest winner of #5 but needs to work out some issues before #14 (lest they again lose to a lesser European team like Belgium and Croatia!).
24	Wednesday (TV series)	819,331	I don't care if Monday's black Tuesday, Wednesday - heart attack...
25	Pelé	758,326	Rounding out the list is Pelé, the only guy who might be comparable to #1 and #12 as being the football GOAT (he's the only one to win #5 thrice). The Brazilian great was certainly of interest due to the World Cup final being held. However, the legend's health is also in the news. Here's to hoping his treatment to combat his cancer is successful.

Notes[edit]

^ This figure combines page views for "2022 FIFA World Cup final" (113,081) and its former title (and now redirect) "2022 FIFA World Cup Final" (902,700) as the page was moved to the new title/capitalization during the week.

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.

[1] This figure combines page views for "2022 FIFA World Cup final" (113,081) and its former title (and now redirect) "2022 FIFA World Cup Final" (902,700) as the page was moved to the new title/capitalization during the week.

[1]