World Cup final smashes social media records

The thrilling World Cup championship match between Germany and Argentina set new Twitter and Facebook records, according to the social media platforms.

The World Cup final set a new Twitter record of 618,725 tweets per minute discussing the match, according to Twitter data.

Meanwhile, Facebook also said the game hit record numbers, prompting 280 million interactions, with 88 million people engaged globally. For comparison, 66 million people had more than 200 million posts, comments and likes during the Brazil-Germany semifinal match.

This live-time heat map illustrates just how much the Twittersphere lit up across the globe as Germany outlasted Argentina 1-0 to win the nation's fourth World Cup trophy:

Fans and athletes all chimed in on Twitter during and after the match. Even the pope - or at least a guy dressed as the pontiff in Buenos Aires - found his way on social media:

The host nation's most iconic player congratulated the victors:

The coach of the U.S. men's soccer team, Jurgen Klinsmann, couldn't help but cheer his native Germany:

Tennis great Boris Becker also chimed in:

Then there was some basketball player from Akron, Ohio, who has been in the news lately:

Minutes after his team climbed to the top of the football world, German striker Lukas Podolski made sure to tweet a selfie with teammate Bastian Schweinsteiger:

Then he found German Chancellor Angela Merkel:

Meanwhile a dancer alleged to be German star Thomas Muller got his groove on:

Of course, for all the German ecstasy, there was an equal dose of Argentine agony. But mutual respect still won the day on Twitter: