Need inspiration for great design that gets across useful information? Look no further (if you're designing for the World Cup or your kids soccer team, anyways). Here's some great and useful designs used for the World Cup from mashable.com.
For continuous World Cup coverage, check out Mashable’s 2010 World Cup Hub, which will be updated throughout the games.
As World Cup pool play continues, games are becoming more electrifying as each and every goal scored counts for the nations trying to earn the highly coveted football title and trophy.
Football aficionados and novices alike can enhance their experience of each game with World Cup visualizations that help to bring the action on the field to life in mesmerizing digital formats.
Scroll through each of the seven visualizations below for a unique perspective on the World Cup. You won’t be disappointed, especially if you use these applications in tandem while watching the live action unfold on the field. What better way to prove your geek cred to your crew?
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World Cup 2010 Replay

The Guardian has put together an application -- World Cup 2010 Twitter replay -- that creates high-speed replays for each World Cup match. Prepare to be amazed as you relive the entire game through Twitter animation. Action is portrayed via topic bubbles that enlarge as conversation swells on Twitter.
The Guardian set out to let people "see the roar of the crowd passing through Twitter." They certainly succeeded on their mission.
2010 FIFA World Cup Live Tracker

The Live Tracker application is like an ongoing World Cup analytical dashboard with visual stimuli. The tracker bears a striking resemblance to Sprint's Now Network site and includes blocks of World Cup trivia -- think total whistle blows, number of saves, cumulative worldwide audience, goals scored and even vuvuzela noise levels -- that football fans the world round will love.
This visualization may be a little heavy on Castrol promotion, but it's hard not to get excited when presented with these interesting factoids.
South Africa 2010 Twitter Buzz

CNN's Twitter Buzz application is unbelievably simple and yet absolutely stunning. The application tracks World Cup tweets by teams, players and topics. You can check out the current flow of tweets or scroll through the past 24 hours.
Given Twitter's recurring issues, one can except the Fail Whale to hinder the sheer awesomeness of the visualization from time to time, but CNN has created their very own amusing "Fail Ball" for you to look at during Twitter hiccups.
LivePitch for iPad

About a month ago, Mint Digital released a concept for an iPad app that would visualize match play by mapping ball possession on a digital football field. Just yesterday their vision became a reality when LivePitch was released as a free iPad application.
The application is designed to compliment your World Cup viewing experience as a second screen. You can watch in real-time as possession changes from player to player via the interactive football field. Stats-aholics can also dive into the Stats tab or select individual players for detailed and real-time player data on passes, goals, tackles and shots.
Calendar World Cup 2010

The Calendar World Cup 2010 turns the massive event's schedule into a wheel of visually stimulating information. Simply move your cursor to hover over a date, city or team and you'll get a glimpse at the associated matches.
Calendar World Cup 2010 by MARCA.com is simply a colorful way to keep track of the overwhelming schedule, but it's also proven quite popular with over 176,000 likes on Facebook thus far.
World Cup Match Tracker

As part of their World Cup coverage, the New York Times has created a match tracker application to supplement their Goal blog. The application boasts impressive minute-by-minute data overlaid on a soccer field so you can visualize passes, goals and shots for the duration of the game.
If you're feeling lazy, the Overview tab will breakout game data in a nifty line graph. You can also check out player rankings for touches, passes, goals, fouls and balls won. It's fantastic to behold and super fun for stats addicts to toy with.
Total Football 2010 for iPhone

If you're total nerd for World Cup game data then Total Football 2010 for iPhone will more than satisfy your match analysis cravings. The $2.99 app is worth every penny as it presents advanced statistical analysis for head-to-head comparisons between teams or players, all with visual finesse. Stats include shots, passes and tackles with users able to look at a game in its entirety or use the slider to pinpoint a particular moment for a more focused perspective.
Given that updates are in near real-time, you can also use this app as your play-by-play cheat sheet for games that you're not able watch on television. There's even a 'Player Influence" feature for identifying the players making the biggest impact in a particular match.
Edited: June 20, 2010 08:52AM