Jannik Sinner was (almost) overtaken by Kimi Antonelli in the special rankings, but the king is someone else

Kimi Antonelli is undoubtedly one of the most popular Italian athletes in the world, as evidenced by his social media numbers: the young Mercedes driver has reached 9.3 million followers on Instagram—nearly double that of Jannik Sinner (5.7 million)—but not enough to be the top Italian athlete in this special ranking.

Just ahead of Jannik Sinner is Stephan El Shaarawy (5.9 million followers): “Il Faraone” is extremely popular thanks to a solid fan base built up during his years in Rome, to which are added thousands of fans from Genoa, Monaco, Padova, and Milan.

Gianluigi Donnarumma, the national team goalkeeper who played for Milan and Paris Saint-Germain before joining Manchester City, has just under 7 million followers. Even higher on the list is Marco Verratti, who played for Pescara in Italy but made his name in France with PSG. He now plays for Al-Duhail.

In second place, as mentioned above, is the unstoppable Kimi Antonelli, trailing only Mario Balotelli. The Italian national team striker has played for many teams (Inter, Manchester City, Milan, Liverpool, Nice, Olympique de Marseille, Brescia, Monza, Adana Demirspor, Sion, Genoa, and now Al-Ittifaq), and this has certainly helped him. In recent years, he has been the subject of much discussion, and his fame has earned him 11.9 million followers on Instagram.