World Cup fever is upon us.
The teams are primed. Brazil is in beta. Spain look fierce. England are… present.
Though the usual rhetoric around England’s chances isn’t around this time, many will be wearing England colours for 4 straight weeks – myself included.
It’s a stressful affair for many of us. With that in mind, Tech City News has put together the ultimate tech guide to make your World Cup that little bit easier.
1. Scheduling the games
First things first, we need to get timetabling problems out of the way.
Luckily (for all those who use Google Calendars anyway) the solution is at your finger tips. The complete schedule has been made into a Google calendar that you can simply add to your existing timetable.
Easier yet, just book out 5pm to 1:30am every day for the foreseeable future. I mean, you wouldn’t want to miss Nigeria v Bosnia-Herzegovina, would you?
2. Be at the best pubs
London has a plethora of pubs/bars/bathrooms on your ipad/outdoor fan zones where you can watch the World Cup this year.
For those who want the most authentic atmosphere for every match, the Telegraph have put together the ultimate pub crawl – a guide to where you should watch each country play.
Disclaimer: Don’t try to visit them all in one go.
3. Get the beers in
If watching the matches with your colleagues in the offices on a Friday is more your speed, there’s some Old Street help for you.
Save yourself the hassle of running to the shop and buying your usual lagers; let Deskbeers do the leg work for you.
DeskBeers is a subscription service that delivers craft beer from local breweries to offices on Friday afternoons. Luckily, their local brews will be around long after England crash out…
4. Block out the spoilers
Possibly the biggest problem facing the employed World Cup fanatics is how to watch the late 11pm kickoffs and not look like an extra from the Walking Dead the following day.
For those who want to watch matches they have recorded as live without having the tension ruined, there is a Google Chrome extension that will block spoilers in your social media feed.
This can equally be used for those who just want to ignore the who affair altogether – though I’m not sure why you would want to.
5. Hide the football from the boss
Another useful Chrome extension for the World Cup – this one for those who might be spending a bit of their work time on World Cup procrastination.
PanicButton hides all your non work-related taps with one F4 click. If you boss is coming, you can make it looks like you are your normal productive self with just one click.
6. Become a know-it-all
Knowing who won the last 19 World Cups is no longer enough to impress.
With all the data available nowadays, there is a whole range of new statistics that you should be adding to your repertoire.
If you ever wondered you would win if each match was decided by which country has the most McDonalds restaurants per capita, most military spending, or most cars per capita, the Wall Street Journal have put together a graphic showing how the World Cup would pan out match-by-match. (Spoiler: all three mentioned are the United States.)
7. The football economy
In another snazzy interactive chart, the Economist have designed one that depicts every goal in previous World Cup games by the minute, whether from open play, a penalty or an own goal.
Filters let you drill down by country, year and stage. It will also update daily with all the goals from the 2014 tournament.
8. Learn the language
This World Cup, there’s even something those who have used the map above to find the best pubs and want to offend the competition in their mother tongue.
Language learning platform busuu have
9. Go back to basics
Last but not least, be sure to download the FIFA World Cup app.
It includes full results and schedules, team information, the ability to check out some of the stadiums and cities hosting the games, match alerts and even a daily liveblog.
And that’s it! You’re all set for four weeks of World Cup enjoyment.