Top 10 MLS Players – April 2019

Top MLS Players With the Highest Social Interactions Among Fans

The second month of Major League Soccer play has come and gone. Goals were scored, upsets were made, and records were broken. Three new teams joined the Top 10 in the Hookit Engagement Rankings this month, but the top four did not change. Minnesota United jumped four spots to 6th with 396.5K interactions on 1.1k posts. Vancouver Whitecaps and San Jose Earthquakes jumped four spots each, landing the eighth and tenth spots with 323.5K and 289.2K interactions respectively. This month’s most engaged players included plenty of new and old faces, with the league’s leading scorer Carlos Vela cracking the top ten and foreign superstar Nani dropping down to number eighteen.

Note: All data from Hookit Engagement rankings on May 6th, 2019. Data is updated consistently to reflect live rankings on the Hookit Rankings website.

Key Insights

Jozy Altidore pops the question!

Toronto FC and former US Men’s National Team forward Jozy Altidore and tennis star Sloane Stephens got engaged this April. The announcement of the engagement garnered almost 19K interactions on Instagram and was Altidore’s most popular post of the month. The posted launched Altidore from tenth in March to fourth in April. Altidore’s second most popular post this month — with almost 16K views — was also about family. This time it was a video of him saying goodbye to his five-year-old son prior to a game. Altidore also scored a few goals for his team, Toronto FC, this past month, helping his team stay at the top of the table in the Eastern Conference, despite the team’s poor ranking on social.

Montero Jumps 11 Spots with Global Presence

Vancouver Whitecaps forward Fredy Montero joined the team for a second time this season after spending a year with Sporting CP, a soccer club based out of Portugal. Monero finds himself ranked number seven this month in the Hookit Engagement Top 10. Scoring 2 goals for his team in the United States, Montero supported his old teammates in Portugal on social. His former club earned a spot in the final of the premier football tournament in Portugal, and Montero’s congratulatory post racked up almost 11K interactions. This month also saw Vancouver face Orlando on the field, which meant prior Sporting CP teammates became opponents. In preparation for the game, Montero’s tribute to teammate Nani gained almost 14K views on Instagram.  

Carlos Vela and Zlatan Ibrahimovic Crosstown Rivalry

Los Angeles Football Club’s star forward Carlos Vela jumped four spots this month, landing him the ninth spot in our Hookit Engagement Top 10. Vela posted 60 times on Facebook, earning him 54.2K interactions. Gaining almost 7K new followers in the past month, Vela finds himself in the Hookit Top 5 in New Follower Growth on social media during April. Ranked right above him, with 8.2K new followers is a cross-town rival, Zlatan Ibrahimovic. These two Los Angeles based players have been the talk of the league this season as the leaders in both goals and shots league-wide. Ibrahimovic earned the number two spot in the Hookit Engagement Top 10 for the second month in a row, with 297.9K interactions across only 17 posts in April.

Wrap Up

The Hookit Engagement Top 10 saw a lot of new names join this month, with six people moving up at least two spots in the rankings. Rooney and Ibrahimovic remain our top two most engaged athletes on social for the MLS with 2.9M and 297.9K interactions respectively. Rooney also gained 54.1K new followers, getting him to over 55 million total followers across all social media platforms. This month, Rooney’s most popular post came on the first day of the month, earning over 450K interactions on Instagram. The third month of the season puts the season in full stride with over 60 games in May, there is sure to be plenty of excitement on and off the field.

Note: All data is from official Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram Business accounts. Any personal Instagram account data is not included in these rankings.

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Written by Sophia Leksan
Sophia studied Information Systems at Loyola Marymount University while being a member of the D1 Women’s Soccer team. She is currently studying to earn her Master’s of Sports Administration at Northwestern University. In her free time, she enjoys playing soccer and exploring Chicago.