Top 25 Report: Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (June 29 to July 6, 2014)

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Summary: Game, (TV) set or match? The World Cup still ruled the roost this week, but with only 9 slots its dominance has loosened somewhat. It shared space with TV (Orange Is The New Black, The Leftovers) movies (Transformers: Age of Extinction) wrestling (Money in the Bank) and of course, Wimbledon; arguably the only sporting event likely to generate passions on a similar scale.

As prepared by Serendipodous, for the week of June 29 to July 5*, the 25 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the 5,000 most viewed pages, were:

(Correction 21 July 2014: This report originally stated incorrectly that it ran through July 6 instead of July 5. We apologize for the error.)

Rank	Article	Class	Views	Notes
1	2014 FIFA World Cup		1,604,100	28 down, four to go. Brazil suffered a catastrophe against Colombia when a bad tackle by Juan Camilo Zuniga left Neymar, Brazil's ever-reliable goal-dispenser, out for the count with a fractured vertebra. They still managed to win though, because they're Brazil. Plucky Costa Rica, ranked 34th in the world before the tournament, managed to hold giant-killers Holland to a goalless draw for the match's duration, only to finally succumb 4/3 on penalties. It is somewhat ironic, perhaps, that the four remaining teams (Germany/Netherlands, Brazil/Argentina) represent two of the most ancient and bitter rivalries in world football, but are denied the chance to enact their respective feuds, if at all, until the final.
2	Transformers: Age of Extinction		808,304	Usually, when a big-shot director is tired of a franchise, the studio will offer him a juicy pay packet to stay on; Paramount gave Michael Bay an entire movie so he would agree to continue to prop up their tent-pole series, which is all the more vital since Marvel and Indiana Jones are now at Disney. The movie's 17% RT rating (even lower than for the much-reviled entry, Revenge of the Fallen) shows just how much commitment Bay brought to the project; that said, its $300 million worldwide opening (of which $100 million was from the US and $90 million, thanks to some shameless in-movie pandering, was from China) shows audiences don't really care.
3	FIFA World Cup		758,356	The broader article on the history of the competition may have been accessed by people looking for the long view, but in truth it was probably more to do with people looking with the more specific article above.
4	Tim Howard		678,538	Whenever the American attitude to sports is mentioned in conversation, sooner or later someone is bound to quote an aphorism popularised (though not coined) by Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi: "Winning isn't everything; it's the only thing." There have been many theories proposed as to why football (soccer) hasn't exactly caught fire in the US, but the simplest is that not only to Americans not generally win at it, it's not really a game that encourages the Big Win. The Big Win is a defining theme in US culture, and the idea that a game could end in a nil-nil draw rakes claws across the American psyche. Americans don't feel comfortable unless the home team is ahead by double digits. Well, America lost its match against Belgium this week, sending it out of the World Cup, but their goalkeeper Tim Howard will go down in history after making a superhuman 16 saves; a record for a World Cup match. This led to an explosion of Internet memes suggesting other things Howard could save (My favourite? Howard saving Emily Ratajkowski from Robin Thicke). So perhaps Americans have finally learned that winning isn't the only thing. Or perhaps not. But still it was fun while it lasted.
5	Independence Day (United States)		663,819	The American celebration of its Declaration of Independence from Britain on July 4, 1776 (although technically American independence was declared on July 2, by which time the American Revolutionary War had already been going for more than a year, and not actually attained until February 3, 1783) is arguably the biggest summer festival in the English-speaking world, with the possible exception of Christmas in Australia. Still, only half the interest of last year, which seems to be a running theme.
6	James Rodríguez		642,528	The Colombian midfielder scored at least one goal in each of his team's matches, even their final, home-sending loss against Brazil. That his team is out but is no tragedy for Rodriguez; not only is he a favourite for the Golden Boot but Real Madrid are now desperate to sign him.
7	Nick Kyrgios		449,362	The 18-year-old Australian tennis player, ranked just 144th in the world, smashed into the public eye by reaching the quarter-finals of the 2014 Wimbledon Championships.
8	Neymar		411,297	How must it feel to be him right now? To go from the tournament's supernaturally competent goal-scoring machine to an invalid with a fractured vertebra thanks to an unpunished bad tackle? He must be wondering what the chances are of him never competing again, to say nothing of seething with rage. Brazil aren't out yet, but the loss of their star performer does not bode well for the last leg.
9	Costa Rica		372,966	This stalwart little country, with a population slightly smaller than Sydney, Australia, managed to demonstrate that you don't need an army to wage an effective campaign for world domination. Although they "only" made it to the quarter finals of the World Cup, they still had to be worn down by a 4 to 3 penalty shoot-out.
10	Deaths in 2014		357,467	The list of deaths in the current year is always a popular article.
11	Lionel Messi		352,428	The Argentine forward and captain of the national team is a contender for the title of "best footballer on the planet". FIFA certainly thinks so; he won the Golden Ball award three years in a row. He's scored four goals in the tournament so far, making him a key element in Argentina's smooth progress to the semi-finals.
12	Cornfield Bomber		348,203	The peculiar story of this Convair F-106 Delta Dart, which made an almost perfect landing in a cornfield without its previously-ejected pilot, became a topic of discussion on Reddit this week.
13	Eugenie Bouchard		344,000	The Canadian tennis player reached the final of the women's 2014 Wimbledon Championships, though she lost to Petra Kvitová.
14	The Leftovers (TV series)	Unassessed	336,911	Guess what? Damon Lindelof's followup to Lost is weird. Imagine Left Behind with the religion removed. If that's possible.
15	United States men's national soccer team		335,559	The US doesn't usually make much of an impact on the World Cup, but they've acquitted themselves admirably this tournament, with their final match against Belgium becoming an online obsession.
16	Ek Villain		329,620	The Bollywood romantic thriller opened big in its home market, earning ₹320 million ($5.4 million) in its opening weekend.
17	2010 FIFA World Cup		326,143	The current World Cup has buoyed interest in the last one, with people doubtless looking for parallels, clues for upcoming matches, or omens.
18	Money in the Bank (2014)		325,489	Well, that's an honest title for a WWE pay-per-view event.
19	Iggy Azalea		314,161	The Australian/American rapper released her début album, The New Classic on 21 April, and the Gods of Pop Culture have declared her single "Fancy" to be the Song of the Summer. She got a slight spike on 30 June when, apparently, Niki Minaj dissed her at the BET Awards. For some reason.
20	Orange Is the New Black		309,697	The second season of the women-in-prison TV series premièred in its entirety on Netflix on 6 June.
21	Facebook		294,386	A perennially popular article.
22	1994 FIFA World Cup		292,024	A first appearance for this now-ancient incarnation of the event, which had a lot of emotional resonance for many of the current competitors; for Americans, it was a reminder of a previous match (against Brazil) when they stood tall against impossible odds and lost. For Colombians, it was a reminder of the execution of their own-goal-scoring defender Andrés Escobar.
23	List of Bollywood films of 2014		277,380	An established staple of the top 25 returns.
24	List of FIFA World Cup finals		275,056	Are people perhaps searching for patterns in past finals to see if their countries have a chance?
25	2014 in film		274,884	A new entry for the list, probably in preparation for the Hollywood summer movie season.

Exclusions

This list excludes the Wikipedia main page, non-article pages (such as redlinks), and anomalous entries (such as DDoS attacks or likely automated views). Please keep in mind that the explanations given for these articles' popularity are, fundamentally, guesses. Just because I can't find a reason for an article to be included doesn't mean there isn't one; conversely, just because a plausible reason is found for a view spike, that doesn't mean it wasn't due to a bot.

There are a number of articles that reappear frequently in the top 25 for no determined reason, and have been excluded as likely being due to automated views. Please feel free to discuss any removal on the talk page if you wish.

- Malware: How appropriate for malware to go looking for malware.
- IPv6: I have to face facts; I allowed this into the top 25 for months as it is the kind of issue that would appeal to web denizens (ala Bitcoin) but its insane popularity is just too high explain by human interest alone. It's getting help.
- Ddd: Hello? Spambot here. Just checking in.
- Alive/Alive!: Links to disambigs with no apparent reason for being.