World Cup 2018: Twitter gives 'golden tweet' to Kyle Walker as it reveals most popular posts

Kyle Walker has been awarded the "golden tweet" for being the most popular tweeter during the World Cup.

The England defender has been recognised by Twitter for posting the UK's most popular tweet during the tournament. And it all came at the expense of a teammate.

The post – the most popular by anyone connected to the England team that went up during the tournament – made use of a popular meme that poked fun at a picture in which Harry Maguire looked like he was patronising his fiancée Fern Hawkins. It has since been shared more than 73,000 times.

Harry Maguire had his own go at the popular format. Though his post received nearly 50,000 retweets and came fourth on Twitter's list of popular posts, it failed to beat the gentle ribbing that came from his teammate.

Walker had an especially successful World Cup. On of his tweets was posted nearly 50,000 times – and spawned its own small meme, "Kyling", in which people recreated the strange pose he was spotted in as cramp set in at the end of penalties against Colombia.

That post was the sixth most popular of the tournament, according to Twitter.

But the most popular post of all was tweeted by the team's official account. And it came at a heartbreaking moment, after England were knocked out of the competition by Croatia.

The golden tweets only took retweets from within the UK – though it did not exclude posts that came from players from outside the country, or from fans.

The rest of the top ten was mostly made up of other tweets from England players, but also included a couple of posts from people outside the team as well. Those included Michy Batshuayi's self-deprecating post after he accidentally kicked a ball into his own face, and another in which football writer Richard Jolly mocked Ukip for appearing to take ownership of the England team.

“The England team played a blinder on and off the pitch," said Twitter managing director Dara Nasr. "Across the squad their Tweets gave fans a genuine insight into the highs, lows and humour from England’s most successful World Cup campaign in a generation.

"How brilliant that the most popular Player Tweet is Kyle Walker having a laugh with team mate Harry Maguire!”