5 Soccer Apps Reviewed for Smartphones and Tablets

Now that we’re on an international break, it’s perfect timing to take a look at five apps that soccer fans should consider in order to get their footy fix on the go.

One is new yet nostalgic, one is revamped, two you may not even know about and one is a decent news source. These apps are sold through the iTunes Store, so check online for the latest version and prices.

20 Seasons Premier League

IMG, the official distributor of the Premier League archives, has produced an app celebrating 20 years of the Premier League. For $3, this app lets you relive 112 classic moments from the past 20 seasons. Of course supporters may agree or disagree with some of the selections, but the interactivity of this app is agreeable.

You can select different managers, different players and you also have the option to stream these moments, each lasting around 1 minute or download them to your iPhone or iPad to view when you don’t have a network connection. The moments are appropriately narrated and in HD. Also, you can take a quiz with each one. Some include: David Beckham’s debut, Coventry City’s 3-2 win over Manchester United in 1997, and yes, Manchester City’s 2012 Premier League title win.

Searching for some of these moments can be a bit tedious as you have to slide through the screen to find what you are looking for (that’s why it’s handy to save some as ‘Favorites’) and you only get one quiz question per moment. At least, if you choose to download some of the videos, they don’t take up a lot of space. There is also an option to build a ‘Favorites’ list so you can watch them over and over again.  It’s a pretty cool novelty app for the price and I am hoping that IMG and Premier League can come up with a newsy Premier League app which will let me keep up with current news and track my fantasy team, which would be a lot more useful.

3.5 out of 5 stars

ESPN FC

This is actually the ESPN Soccernet (discussed back in March) app with a new coat of paint on it…literally.  The app went from blue to green and while it’s still a great app to use to keep up with current scores and stats in the game with a great way to customize your alerts, one of the biggest problems still remains: ESPN still does not adequately update the ESPN Press Pass video segment (as of now, the most current show is from 22 August). And when it shows the stream, you lose video and the audio gets garbled after 10 minutes. If ESPN took the time to address this issue, this could be one of the best free footy news apps out there, hands down.

2.5 out of 5 stars

Sirius XM Radio

I discovered these two treasures this spring. Since I already had a subscription to Sirius, I decided to see if they actually had any shows devoted to soccer and I found The Football Show. It is a daily show that live broadcasts at 7am EST for 2 hours and if you miss a show, you can listen to it later via the archives and I always found it fun and informative. I also found out that you can also listen in on live broadcasts with this app. I have yet to try it because most of the time I am in front of a screen screaming at it.  If you have a Sirius subscription, you can’t miss out.

5 out of 5 stars

Talksport Radio

talkSPORT Radio is another gem I found actually during the winter and listened in every now and again. I had another app called TuneIn radio, which features almost any channel in the world you wanted you could listen to. And that’s how I discovered talkSPORT Radio.  Later on, I learned they actually had their own app and began using that as sometimes the TuneIn App would sometimes drop.  It’s very informative, real time information and best yet, no matter when you listen in, there’s always something going on. And yes, it’s free.  A must-have for sports radio fans

5 out of 5 stars

Goal.com App

This free app has so much potential. Imagine an app that aggregates nearly all of the world footy news into one app, stores pictures to allow adequate mobile viewing and frequent updates when connected to an Internet source. This app has it all in spades on the iPad and iPhone (and functions even better than the RSS feed in Flipboard) — except there is one big problem. No customization.  There is no way for users to change the app to get the news that they want from the leagues that they want. Thus users may find themselves sifting through articles before they get to one that they really care about and several times I have run across a few duplicate articles also. If this was fixed, then this would be a great go-to source for mobile news and information, especially when you are like me and on the Metro early in the morning wanting to find out what’s going on.

3 out of 5 stars

These are just a few apps that I looked at as the season started and I am sure more will be along. As always, check your provider for availability and pricing. And of course, be mindful that you get what you paid for! And as with any app, please be aware of your phone’s data transfer rates. Phone batteries will also drain with usage so set alerts wisely.