England against Iran is the World Cup game that has caused the biggest social media reaction so far, a new study has found.

The research by sports betting site Nostrabet analysed the number of tweets containing the official fixture hashtag for each team’s first two games of the tournament.

It found that the number of tweets containing #ENGIRN on the day of England’s incident-packed game with Iran totalled 538,974 – by far the highest amount in the tournament so far, and more than the second and third most tweeted matches combined.

The match provided plenty of reasons for discussion on social media, from England’s six goal haul and exciting performances from young stars, to the gruesome clash of heads between Iran goalkeeper Ali Beiranvand and Majid Hosseini, and the record amount of injury time that was added.

The second most tweeted game of the opening two rounds of World Cup action was Wales vs Iran. The #WALIRN hashtag was used 336,631 times on the day that Iran scored twice in injury time to secure a 2-0 win following a red card for Wales keeper Wayne Hennessey.

The third most tweeted game was France’s impressive 4-1 win over Australia, with the hashtag #FRAAUS being used 176,133 times on the day of the game as Kylian Mbappe and Olivier Giroud helped put the Socceroos to the sword.

Completing the top five, Japan’s massive win over Germany generated 166,612 tweets with the #GERJPN hashtag, putting it in fourth, while the fifth most tweeted game was Saudi Arabia’s stunning upset of Argentina, which produced 158,013 posts containing #ARGKSA on the day of the game.

Commenting on the study, a spokesperson for Nostrabet said: “It’s fascinating to see which games have generated the biggest reaction on social media, with the top matches generating hundreds of thousands of posts. There has been plenty to talk about during this World Cup both on and off the pitch, and with half of the games already played, it will be interesting to see how social media reacts as we prepare for the knock-out stages and the stakes get even higher.”

At the other end of the scale, Japan vs Costa Rica generated the fewest tweets of the World Cup so far, with just 11,406 uses of #JPNCRC on the day of the game. Uruguay’s 0-0 draw with South Korea was similarly uninspiring, as it prompted 16,042 posts containing #URUKOR, while the same day also featured the third least tweeted game, with Switzerland v Cameroon (#SUICMR) receiving 18,202 posts.

Overall the fixture hashtags have been used a combined 2,947,534 times since the tournament started on 20 November. The day of fixtures that has generated the most tweets so far is 21 November, the first Monday of the World Cup, which produced 643,724 posts containing the fixture hashtag for one of the day’s games. The second most tweeted day was 25 November, which prompted 487,560, while the third biggest day was 22 November, with 410327 tweets.

The most tweeted games of the World Cup so far, by Nostrabet