Earlier today, La Liga soccer player Ricardo Izecson dos Santos Leite surpassed 10 million followers on twitter, becoming the first athlete to do so.  To put this achievment into perspective, the Real Madrid player commonly known as “Kaka” has a million more followers than his superstar counterpart Cristiano Ronaldo, arguably the most well known soccer player in the world.  Kaka’s 10 million followers is more than twice the amount of LeBron James, the most popular American athlete on twitter.  How did he do it? Maybe it has something to do with that sweet glamour shot he has as his profile picture. 

Kaka's popularity is most likely due to this super sweet glamour shot that he uses as his Twitter avatar.

Kaka is an attacking midfielder for Real Madrid, a position that is more about being a good passer than goal scorer.  In fact, Kaka only has 8 goals on the year as compared to 41 by Leo Messi and 42 by Ronaldo.  Based on those stats, it’s pretty surprising that the guy is so popular.  I guess for Europeans it’s not all about scoring goals.  With Kaka and Ronaldo both doubling LeBron in twitter popularity, it just goes to show how popular soccer is worldwide.  Then again, soccer’s got nothing on pop music, Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber each have more than 20 million followers.