With less than 6 hours for the biggest tournament in the World to Kick Off, here is our roundup of the best apps which will allow you to follow the FIFA World Cup 2014.
1. Onefootball Brasil – World Cup
I stumbled on to this app during some recent promo campaigns by AppGratis and AppOfTheDay, who featured them as their recommended application of the day. The app was made exclusively for the FIFA World Cup 2014. One Football Brasil comes with a lot of features. You can pick a favorite team to follow, and receive Push Notifications for key alerts from your team’s matches.
Once you pick a team, you can read news, group and squad information. You can use the sidebar to access the newsfeed, schedule, and other information such as the stats about the top Scorers, Assists, Goals and assists, yellow and red cards.
The most important feature is the Schedule section, which displays all the fixtures in your local time. You can tap on a match to view more information about it, including live coverage.
The app also has a history section, with interesting information from the previous World Cups.
[appbox googleplay com.onefootball.brasil]
2. ESPN FC Football & World Cup
Perhaps the most popular app in this list, it is a no brainer since it comes from the best Sports Channel in the World. You need to sign up for a free ESPN account to make the most out of this app. Once you have done that you can pick your favorite team to receive push notifications for alerts about team related news. The main UI of the app allows you to view the scores, read news articles and watch videos from ESPN. The “Now” tab displays tweets which have the #WorldCup hashtag. You can also view the group table from the main interface.
Selecting a favorite team allows you to view your team’s fixtures and scores, set up alerts for upcoming matches, read team related news.
It is also one of two apps in this roundup, which has a Widget. The other app being “theScore: Sports & Scores”. The ESPN widget displays your team’s upcoming fixture.
Note: The app has annoying pop up ads which take up the entire screen.
[appbox googleplay com.espn.fc]
3. BBC Sport
Made by another excellent source for news, the BBC Sports app has a section for the FIFA WC 2014. You can read the summary of the live coverage or watch it live, view information about the Groups and Schedule, results, fixtures and the tournament’s top scorers. You can also read news articles and watch exclusive videos.
You can setup alerts for your favorite team, to receive notifications about Line-ups, Kick-off, Goals, Half-time score, and the result of matches.
[appbox googleplay bbc.mobile.sport.ww]
4. LiveScore
Simplicity, is the only word that comes to mind, when I use the LiveScore app. The app’s title does what it says, it shows you the live score and does little else. You can use the bar on the bottom to navigate between Scores, Live Scores, Soccer Menu, App Settings and a refresh button. The first three are the most useful ones, with the soccer listing all the fixtures of the WC. Tap on a group name to view it’s table.
Interestingly, only the first upcoming match is clickable, selecting which displays the fixture in your local time, and the formation, the line-ups and the coaches of the two teams.
If you want a clutter free app, and just want to view the scores, this is your best best.
[appbox googleplay com.livescore]
5. Jalvasco World Cup 2014
This app is unique, in the sense, it allows you to add and remove tabs to your liking. You can add tabs for a specific team, all matches, a specific group, all groups and a specific round of the WC tournament.
The main UI has various interesting information such as Stadium information and photo,the History of the World Cup, News, Videos and Photos from the WC 2014. You can change the language of the news articles quickly with the “A” icon on the top.
Despite the odd UI colours, this is a good app. The only disadvantages are that you don’t get team related news, or set up alerts for any matches.
[appbox googleplay com.jalvasco.football.worldcup]
6. FIFA
The official app for the FIFA World Cup 2014 from the governing body of Football. While all the other apps listed here are around 10 MB or less in size, the FIFA app sits at a big fat 35 MB. the app’s UI is modern, and impressive.
The mainUI has the Live Coverage from the World Cup, News Articles, Teams (with Player Profiles, latest team news, a little bit of the Country’s WC history, Group Standings, Fixtures and the Manager’s profile)., Standings (Group Table), Awards (such as Golden Boot, Golden Glove, with the history of former winners), Destination (info about the host Country i.e, Brazil, the stadiums and the host cities) and a Games section (where you play some fantasy WC games).
You can set up alerts for FT scores, Line-Up, Kick-Off, Goals, Bookings, HT Scores, Man of the match, Team related news
The sidebar has shortcuts for the News including photos, videos, which surprisingly you cannot navigate from the FIFA World Cup section, World Match Centre, and the FIFA WC section.
When you are at the WC screen, pull up the the bar on the bottom to bring up a section with the FIFA World Cup Schedule displayed in your local time.
You can also view the FIFa rankings of teams from all Countries.
[appbox googleplay com.fifa.fifaapp.android]
7. theScore: Sports & Scores
The developers had an exclusive app for Football, which they abandoned last year, and incorporated all the sports news into their main app, “theScore: Sports & Scores”. The app uses the bar on the top for navigating to the News, Fixtures, and other FIFA World Cup related sections. Selecting the monthly Calendar view displays the match days, tap on a date to jump to the fixture.
Getting related news is quite bothersome in this app. You have to navigate to MyScore> Following and then tap on the team you followed to view team news, scedule, and squad information.
Just make sure to disable all the other leagues and sports, and you are good to go. Despite unchecking the other sports from the settings, you still get information about them in the All News and Hot Games section.
[appbox googleplay com.fivemobile.thescore]
If you are a radio junkie, and would like to listen to Football Commentary, don’t worry we have you covered, TuneIn Radio does just that.
[appbox googleplay tunein.player]
Onefootball Brasil is my pick of the lot as it has all the information you need in a clutter-free UI.
Drop a comment below on which is your favorite app of the lot, and why.
