I try my best to keep up with the latest games and news in the world of football(soccer), but there are times when I miss out. Until last week, I was using Yahoo! Sports on my iPhone to follow football related news, but everything changed when THE Football App (henceforth TFA) was updated to version 6.0 last week. TFA is a Universal iOS app and is without a doubt one of the most comprehensive ways to consume news, results, statistics, etc from the world of football.
Version 6.0 of TFA has been redone for iOS 7 and looks pixel perfect on the iPhone and retina iPad. On launching TFA, you are taken to the ‘home view,’ where you can view fixtures, table standings, world football news, videos and more from some of the most popular football leagues and competitions in the world. TFA features over 100 leagues and competitions and thousands of teams from across the globe. There’s an insane amount of detail about individual players, squads, match statistics and upcoming fixtures, all available within this amazing little app. For example, player statistics for a particular league can be accessed by tapping on the graphical notation on the top right in the ‘home view’. These statistics include details about players with the most number of goals, assists, yellow cards and red cards during the current season.
TFA lets you follow live games using the ‘Live Today’ view which can be accessed anytime from the menu by tapping the ‘hamburger’ button on the top left. In this view, the app displays live games and games from the previous day, each easily accessible by swiping left or right across the screen. Tapping on any of the live matches takes you to the extremely elegant ‘Matchday’ view, which features a Live Ticker, Match Highlights and Team Line-ups. This is where you’ll find yourself when you’re following live commentary of your favorite team’s game. I love the way both the navigation bar and tab bar get out of your way when you scroll up so that you can concentrate on the current content.
The app’s menu has a list of competitions from all over the world with the most popular leagues conveniently situated right on top. The unique feature of TFA that is currently only on iOS is ‘Fan Zone,’ which lets you share your comments and join the fun in any live match using Twitter, Facebook, Google or by signing up with TFA. Other features that I found myself using very frequently are favorites and notifications. You can ‘Favorite’ leagues and teams and even receive notifications when your team plays a match or when a major event takes place during the match.
THE Football App is the ultimate app for football lovers and is an absolute no-brainer for anyone who follows the sport. The Universal app is available Free on the App Store and is also available for Android and Windows Phone devices.