This 2014 FIFA World Cup, Twitter offers you and other fans around the world a front row seat to all 64 matches. Whether you’re on Twitter for iPhone, Twitter for Android or twitter.com, you can easily follow all the matches, players, coaches and more. How? Here’s how!
If you’re already on Twitter, you can support your team and take advantage of the new World Cup features.
You’ll notice that there’s a new right sidebar on your landing page. What it does is display the upcoming matches in your local time. We know, right? How easy peasy did that turn out to be!
You can also “Choose your side”, where you start by selecting the country you’re supporting.
Twitter will then allow you to choose from a number of profile and header photos that represent your country. There’s also the TwitterSports account that globally tracks and shares sports-related tweets from players, fans, and experts, created lists for countries participating in the tournament so you can follow a whole team easily. Subscribe to your favourite ones or pick and choose players from different lists.
And that’s not all! We’ve also found a list of hashtags and players to ensure that you don’t miss any of the World Cup action. As follows:
Official hashtags for the tournament:
- English: #worldcup and #Brazil2014
- Spanish: #Brasil2014
- French: #Brésil2014 and #CM2014
- German: #wm2014
- Portuguese: #Copa2014
Most-followed World Cup teams on Twitter (as of early June):
- Mexico: @miseleccionmx
- Brazil: @CBF_Futebol (Mexico and Brazil have continually flip-flopped for the top spot)
- Colombia: @FCFSeleccionCol
- United States: @ussoccer
- Spain: @SeFutbol
- Japan: @jfa_samuraiblue
Most-followed World Cup players on Twitter (as of early June):
- Cristiano Ronaldo: @cristiano (Portugal)
- Neymar: @neymarjr (Brazil)
- Wayne Rooney: @waynerooney (England)
- Andrés Iniesta: @andresiniesta8 (Spain)
- Gerard Piqué: @3gerardpique (Spain)
- Xabi Alonso: @XabiAlonso (Spain)
Additionally, Twitter has also brought back the option of hashflags, a feature introduced in 2010, that produces an image of a country’s flag after users type in a hashtag with a country code.
It works, guys. Even Shakira has tried it:
Twitter’s just unlocked its new World Cup feature – from today country codes become hashflags! Shak #COL #ESP #BRA #FRA #GER #daretodream
— Shakira (@shakira) June 10, 2014
Pretty amazing stuff, no? We don’t know about you but it’s just the thing we needed to keep up with the World Cup news. We’ll leave you now with this Twitter video:
Just a few more hours, to the greatest show on Earth, peeps!
Don’t forget to check out our simplified guide to the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil, educate yourselves with some of the strangest football rituals in the world and have some laughs over this post.
