20 best World Cup apps for Brazil 2014
The greatest apps to make your phone the ultimate World Cup device
There are more ways than ever to keep up with the action at the World Cup, wherever you are. Just pray it doesn't go to penalties.
The World Cup 2014 proper kicks off on June 12 and runs, passes and dribbles its way to the final on July 13.
During that time you'll be able to keep up with all the action minute-by-minute without being tied to your sofa or your TV thanks to the wealth of apps available.
In the four years since the last World Cup the number of people using smartphones, tablets and other wireless devices has exploded and there's no better way to follow your team or watch matches live even if you're out of the house.
1 FIFA Official App
Price: Free
Availability: App Store | Google Play
FIFA's official app covers pretty much all football but it will be featuring all the World Cup action too of course. Follow your national team's progress with access to the match schedule, exclusive destination guides and team profiles.
Get daily insight, inspiration and deals in your inbox
Sign up for breaking news, reviews, opinion, top tech deals, and more.
Add your local and national team to your Favourites in the app to quickly jump to news and results related specifically to them.
2 ESPN FC Soccer & World Cup
Price: Free
Availability : App Store | Google Play
Another app that covers all aspects of football around the world, this one has its own dedicated World Cup tab where you can go to find all the latest news, scores and stats about matches.
There's video content too, with highlights including goals and key action clips as well as reaction and analysis from on the ground in Brazil.
You can set up personalized scores and live game details – just tailor it to show you the stuff you want to see.
3 World Soccer Finals
Price: Free
Availability : App Store | Google Play
Truly one for the football obsessive, this app provides loads of information on matches including live results.
You can view the match schedule, results, lineups, yellow and red cards, match stats, player information and set up favourites to customize the experience.
With push notifications and city and stadium information plus in-app purchases that unlock the ability to add matches to your calendar, it's a football fan's dream come true.
4 World Cup 2014 Brazil
Price: Free
Availability: Google Play
If you're a fan of statistics you'll find much to love in this Android app. With a schedule of all the matches in the championship and full data customization you can track just your chosen teams, groups, matches or conferences.
Get match details like scorers, lineups, subs, cards and referees and even browse in offline mode for when you don't have a connection. Access historical results for comparison and see news about future World Cups.
It's even green and yellow, which we hope doesn't mean it's biased towards Brazil.
5 2014 Table
Price: Free
Availability: Google Play
Sometimes you just want to cut straight to the chase and not worry about lots of peripheral information.
This app, ideal for journalists or news writers, simply shows you the results in an easy-to-read table format.
Get information about the match results of qualified teams, tables, groups, draw, fixtures, playoffs, schedules, dates, times and stadiums where the games will be played. It even auto updates with the latest results.
6 LiveSoccer World Football Cup
Price: Free
Availability: Google Play
Track live matches from more than 300 worldwide soccer leagues and also the World Cup, with customizable push notifications of live events as they happen.
Get text-based live updates and commentary from journalists as well as Head2Head match analysis, statistics and player information.
The app has a rich user interface but is slick and friendly to use, and will keep you abreast of everything that's going on in realtime.
7 Sofascore
Price: Free
Availability: Windows Phone App Store
With a slick, pared-down Windows Phone look, this app is ideal for Windows Phone users looking to keep track of their team's performance whether it's in national or international leagues.
Get live updates and create custom lists to stay up to the minute on the latest action from the World Cup and other tournaments.
8 Squawka
Price: Free
Availability: App Store
The tech-savvy football hipster's dream, the Squawka app gives fans chance to back up any point they make in the pub with cold hard stats, with an assist from those good folks at Opta.
For example, If you think Rickie Lambert performs better than Wayne Rooney and should be starting for England?
You can try to win over your mates by comparing the two players' performances. You could try to show them Lambert keeps the ball better, completes more passes and actually has his own hair.
It has a dashboard full of updates and stats tailored to your team, while live match centres ensure you're fully up to date with shots, cards, goals and substitutions, while every pass and tackle is logged during the game.
9 TeamStream
Availability: App Store
Price: Free
TeamStream is a news and information service from US sporting giant The Bleacher Report that lets you choose your favourite teams and then scrapes stories and tweets from around the web.
It's a good looking one-stop-shop for football news and it'll be a great tool to round up the reaction to your country's World Cup games.
10 BBC Sport
Price: Free
Availability: App Store | Google Play
The BBC Sport app is already an essential app download, but the World Cup additions see the Beeb bring the big hitters off the bench.
There'll be live text commentary for all of the games as well as alerts every time someone enters World Cup folklore by finding the back of the net.
Although there's no live radio commentary on games from within the app, there will be access to regular Radio 5 bulletins.
Combined with the iPlayer, the BBC Sport app is the perfect companion for the greatest showpiece on earth.
11 FourFourTwo Stats Zone
Availability: App Store
Price: Free
If you take your football more seriously than those halfwits in the pub who spout half-baked observations based on tired cliches, FourFourTwo Stats Zone is the app for you.
It offers full analysis of all the World Cup games, from the basic shot count and possession to full pass maps and work rates of the players.
It's not just a pool of meaningless information for football geeks, as it can also be used for evil, adding insight to your fantasy football teams, weekend sports betting and pub trivia.
A technology journalist, writer and videographer of many magazines and websites including T3, Gadget Magazine and TechRadar.com. He specializes in applications for smartphones, tablets and handheld devices, with bylines also at The Guardian, WIRED, Trusted Reviews and Wareable. Chris is also the podcast host for The Liverpool Way. As well as tech and football, Chris is a pop-punk fan and enjoys the art of wrasslin'.