It’s the World Cup season once again and everyone is caught up in the excitement. It’s only a few days to go before the Brazil/Croatia opener sets the mood for the 64-match roller coaster. For the true football fan, there are so many matches to keep up with, so little time. For such a purpose, tailored apps are somewhat indispensable. The following apps come highly recommended.
Supersport
It’s cool enough that the Supersport app lets you check updates, latest news, fixtures, standings, results and video highlights for all sports, including football. But what’s cooler about the app is that it will let you live stream all the World Cup matches and highlights for free on your phone. So you never have to miss a match when you’re on the move. Well, to be more precise, anyone can stream match highlights but only paying DSTV subscribers can watch full live matches. You have to create a DSTV connect account using your smartcard details to activate this feature. If you are going to be using this app to stream live matches a lot, you want to invest in huge data plans.
Android | iOS | Windows Phone
FotMob
FotMob is probably the most complete app anyone can use to follow the World Cup. When you first launch the app all the relevant l information is presented to you in 3 simple tabs – yesterday, today and tomorrow. There’s also a specific section for all the World Cup fixtures, logs and competition stats. When you click on a match, you are shown relevant match facts like head-to-head history, recent form, betting odds and position on the table.
You can also set it to push live goal alerts to your phone. However, this extra feature will cost set you back $2.99, which really isn’t a bad investment if your love for football extends beyond the World Cup season.
Android | iOS | Windows Phone | Blackberry
OneFootball
OneFootball is primarily a football news aggregrator, but with a social twist to it. It sources news from popular sporting sites, including video highlights from YouTube. You can click on fixtures to view match details like pre-match line-up, live commentary and you can set goal updates (push notifications are free but only 2 matches at a time). There’s also a fan zone where you can discuss your favourite teams with others.
Android | iOS | Windows Phone
Google Now
Google has updated the search app to provide timely World Cup info including fixtures, results and standings. What’s cool about Google Now is that you can speak to it (by asking simple questions like “when is Nigeria playing” or “what are today’s World Cup results”) and it’s smart enough to know which teams interest you, serve you timely reminders and updates, without your having to ask.
Android (requires JellyBean 4.2 and up) | iOS
Goal Live Scores
Like the name implies Goal Live Score’s primary purpose is to serve you live match updates, in the order that they’re to be played. There’s an option to filter results by competition, matches or favourite teams. If you set your favourite teams on first launch, the app will push relevant match alerts – pre-match lineup, goals, red cards etc – to your notification centre.
Android | iOS | Windows Phone
Of course Twitter was not created to be a sports app. But that doesn’t stop people from live tweeting sporting events, especially the World Cup. You usually don’t have to go looking for live match updates, they’ll always find their way into your timeline, complete with diverse match commentary, humour and goal alerts. But just in case you don’t follow football loving people, the official Twitter hashtag to follow is #WorldCup.
UPDATE: Twitter just added some really cool World Cup centric features. Check them out
Official FIFA App
We can’t end this list without including the official World Cup app from FIFA. The app provides you with all the relevant news, match details and features, in an impressively laid out format. You might want to watch your data usage though. This one is a data hog.
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