Most social media campaigns stink on ice. I think the one exception to that ironclad fact was the recent I’m With Coco meme, which I’m not even sure you could call a social media campaign. This one, though, this one totally is. It’s called “Queremos
a Selecção de Bigode no Mundial!” It’s a growing movement to get the entire Portuguese national soccer team to grow mustaches. I’ve taken to calling the movement the Portuguese Mustache Federation, which, conveniently enough, doubles as a fantastic indie rock band name. → Read More
I need to move to Europe for several reasons, but the one that’s relevant right now? 3D broadcasts of top-tier football (“soccer”) leagues. Sky Deutschland has announced that it will broadcast the March 14 match between Bayer Leverkusen and Hamburg (that’s the second place team versus the fourth place team). Lucky devils. → Read More
Fortune smiled upon me a few days ago, giving me the chance to check out Adidas’ new equipment that’ll be used during the World Cup. It was fun. Nike, on the other hand? Well, apparently the company hates us for reasons I’ll never understand, so I had to find out about its new boots, also to be used in the World Cup, via some other site. I mean, come on! → Read More
Bom-dia, amigos! É Nicholas com uma conta do Brasil! Vocês sabem que A Copa do Mundo inicia em junho, mas sabiam que muitos brasileiros estam a comprar televisões especficamente para o torneio? Uma firma, DisplaySearch, diz que carragamentos dos LCD TVs vai subir 68% neste ano no país. É claro que todo o Brasil quer ver A Seleção conquistar a copa! → Read More
Will Spain repeat its Euro 2008 success? Greetings from lovely Seattle! I’m here on the West Coast for two reasons. One, Thursday was Adidas’ World Cup Media Day in Portland, and I was invited to check out all the hi-tech wonderment that the company has in store for this World Cup year. Needless to say, being a bit of a soccer fan, I was very excited to attend—I met the guy from Univision, Fernando Fiore, so I’m pretty sure I’ve accomplished all there is to accomplish in life. Two, then I took the choo-choo train to visit Devin. We’re at a café and everyone has their laptop out. It’s very Seattle. But let’s talk about this Adidas thing for a minute. → Read More
ESPN plans to launch a 3D channel in time for this year’s World Cup. This is the downside. Not even Newcastle deserves that. → Read More
So EA is bringing FIFA Online to Western countries. It’s been available in Asia for a couple years now, and players from other parts of the world will get to join in on the fun. Oh, the game: it’s a free, online version of FIFA that you play on your PC. → Read More
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32545640 It was established at some point that Crisitano Ronaldo, the Portuguese international who gets red cards for Real Madrid, can kick a soccer ball at around 130 km/h. People keep track of this for some reason. This here robot… thing can kick a soccer ball at more than 200 km/h. Somewhere, Mr. Ronaldo is quietly sobbing to himself, on top of a huge pile of euros. → Read More
Long story short: Fox Soccer Channel will go HD on March 1. → Read More
Yeah, get ready for an awful lot of World Cup-related nicknacks in the coming months. We saw the official ball, adidas’ Jabulani, last week, and this week… an iPod dock. Yeah, it’s a bit of a drop off. → Read More
Poor North Korea (politics aside, of course). It finds itself in the “group of death” in the 2010 FIFA World Cup, alongside Brazil, Côte d’Ivoire, and Portugal. With all due respect to the team, there’s no way it’s going to get past the likes of Luís Fabiano and Kaká, Didier Drogba and Yaya Touré, and Cristiano Ronaldo and, well… let’s just count Cristiano twice. Twitter agrees: “Groups of death aren’t always deadly groups. But North Korea are completely dead already. #worldcupdraw.” Yes, this will be the first FIFA World Cup of the Twitter era. Brace yourselves. → Read More
Happening right now (well, when this first appears on the front page) is the draw for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. It’s a big deal, and will lead to endless debate on call-in radio shows all over the world: what’s the real group of death? Does [our country] have a chance? Can anyone beat Brazil or Spain? And so on. But the World Cup is pretty useless without, you know, the ball. So, presenting the adidas Jabulani, the ball that will be used during the tournament. There’s a lot going on in that ball, believe me. → Read More
Believe it or not, but FIFA 10 isn’t the only soccer game around. In fact, Pro Evolution Soccer 2010 just came out in Europe, and was the top selling game there last week. Not the top selling sports game, but the top selling game overall. Yeah, it’s big. → Read More
England lost to Ukraine yesterday, thus sullying Fabio Capello’s 100 percent World Cup qualifying campaign record. While I understand that CrunchGear is quite popular in England—we get so much fan mail from Stoke!—I also understand that man of our American readers have no idea what I’m talking about, much less do they care. Au contraire, mes amis, for there is something that might interest you: the result of the online-only broadcast experiment. A toast, then, to the 500,000 or so people who watched the game. → Read More
My fellow Americans! I just wanted to let you know that, yes, there are other countries in the world (WHAT?!), and none of them give a damn about the Madden franchise. EA just revealed that FIFA 10 (which I haven’t played, but that’s OK; I hear it’s good) is the fastest selling sports game of all time! So says a fancy e-mail we just received. Olé-lé, olá-lá, ser del Barça és el millor que hi ha! → Read More
Once again, the Internet has saved the day. As some of you may know, Setanta, a sports broadcaster, recently went out of business in the UK. The unfortunate thing is that Setanta held the rights to England (football/soccer) away games. England play the Ukraine, in Kiev, next week, in a World Cup qualifier, so that leaves English fans without a way to watch the game. (England have already qualified, so it’s not really a huge deal.) What do do?! → Read More
Andrés Iniesta is a good footballer. Cesc Fàbregas is a good footballer. Need I say more? Yes, actually, I do for it to make sense here. Nike has some fancy new soccer boot that’s it’s launching aside an interactive digital training tool that you can use on a Web site, or on your iPhone or iPod touch. Very exciting. → Read More
Matchday Two of the UEFA Champions League begins tomorrow. You probably already know this, because, really, who doesn’t love the Champions League? Exactly. But unless you have DirecTV (here in the U.S.), you’re stuck with whatever games are on the Fox networks. These games primarily feature the English teams, because, I guess, the idea is that “Americans speak English, so they probably like English teams.” Maybe it’s a ratings thing, I don’t know. (There’s a point to all of this, believe me.) There’s a company based out of Barcelona called Flumotion that has developed a new, maybe even better, way to watch the Champions League online. If you’re at all familiar with a DVR, then you’re familiar with the company’s new setup. → Read More
You would think that with a population of 300 million the U.S. would be a little better at soccer than it currently is. Not that the US Mens National Team is terrible—its victory against Spain in the Confederations Cup in June was all kinds of great—but we’re (yup, Royal We time) not exactly known as a “world power,” mentioned in the same breath with Italy, Germany, Spain, Brazil, and Argentina. In steps… EA? Yup, we just got word that EA Sports, makers of FIFA 10, has teamed up with US Soccer to develop and promote a series of training videos that young players can use to improve their game. Is is enough to to give some future USMT the World Cup one day? US Soccer certainly has high hopes. → Read More
Soccer fans in the United States of America probably already know that the UEFA Champions League resumes today. Well, the qualifying rounds featuring teams you or I would recognize, at least. (Arsenal vs. Celtic is the big game today.) It’s on Fox Soccer Channel and the various Fox Sports networks, too, so no more ESPN2 ticker getting in the way. But what you may not know is that FSC has also launched a whole bunch of tech/Internety ways to enjoy the tournament. → Read More
San Francisco, CA
