We’re just a few weeks into World Cup, and the games have again taken their place as the most important sporting event on the planet next to the Summer Olympics. This year,  World Cup fever also spread across social media channels and made the leap from television to computer screens and even mobile applications.

One of our favourite websites is Namez World Cup 2014. For World Cup, Namez, which recently launched their pronunciation API and service, has created a special site where anyone can look up and hear the correct pronunciation, by native speakers, of the names of all the players, as well as referees, coaches, and stadiums in this year’s World Cup Brazil 2014.

What’s the big deal? Everyone who follows the games knows that every World Cup, fans and journalists alike regularly mangle the names of the world’s best footballers.

Namez has also created a World Cup App for Android version of the site that’s simple to setup, and fun to use while you watch the games to compare the correct pronunciation with how the names are being said by your favourite sportscaster. Probably badly, right?

Not surprisingly, it turns out the idea came from the world of journalism. “As a sports editor, I was constantly hearing people disagree on how to pronounce the names of famous athletes,” says Namez CEO and co-founder Adam Grey. “The problem is particularly bad every World Cup because of so many names from around the world. We hope to provide a service and let fans have a lot of fun checking to see if they’re right.”

For that reason, both the site and the app have been particularly popular with top international sportscasters doing live broadcasts as a fast and easy reference tool. And no wonder! This year’s lineup of players is a serious collection of tongue-twisters: Papastathopoulos, Agyemang-Badu, Ghoochannejhad just to name a few!

Namez also allows users to record their own name, so they can share and send it to anyone, or post in on their social walls and profiles, making their name easier to pronounce and remembered. You can also embed a Namez play button in your website, an email signature, or even your CV (using the Namez site).

You definitely don’t have to be a football fan to appreciate Namez!