By Keira Daley

8 June 2010

This isn’t quite the first World Cup of the digital or even social networking ages, but it is the first of the Twit-era, as in the first when Twitter will be used, not just as a medium for exchange of views by fans during games, but by players.

Some nations are forbidden from social networking, others have a more relaxed view, including the Dutch, and the most prolific Tweeter among the Oranje is Liverpool’s Ryan Babel, whose output is prolific.

Today already he has been musing, rather cryptically: “The nature of people is that they are become greedy when they can earn something. #NotGood.”

He has also been re-Tweeting the quotes of Robert Harold Schuller, an American televangelist, including: “Quitting is never an option! The cows gotta be milked come hell or high water!”

And being a good club man, he has also pointed his 29,000-plus followers today towards this feature on Liverpool’s website, which explores the fate of Liverpool players at past World Cups. Only Roger Hunt in 1966 has ever won the Cup as a Liverpool player, while only one other Liverpool player, Hamann in 2006, has been in a World Cup final.

.

More stories mentioning the World Cup

Sportingintelligence home page for all our latest exclusives

Find out what the world’s top sportsmen REALLY earn, in our database, and in our Global Sports Salaries report