The best iPhone and Android soccer/football apps to enjoy during the World Cup
Keep track of your favourite teams – or control virtual ones when your lot are getting a kicking
The FIFA World Cup 2026 is upon us. During those times you’re not glued to the TV, the little screen in your pocket will want to get in on the action. Android and iPhone football apps let you track the news and explore precisely how inept your team was during its recent games.
The rest give you the means to show how you could do better yourself, if only you could control the real world from above.
FotMob
The first of a trio of news/scores/stats apps, FotMob feels swish compared to its rivals, with a clean, usable design. But there’s still loads of news and data to dig into. When it comes to match reports, it’s our favourite. Most apps have a live ticker, but FotMob’s one is more like what you’d get on The Guardian, albeit minus the snark. Still, any personality beats a handful of data points.
LiveScore
This one’s not the prettiest of apps, but it’s a good bet when your loyalties are spread – or you want to regularly gawp at how your team’s rivals are doing. From all of the main screens, you can access a bunch of custom shortcuts, quickly getting to that team’s info. And, of course, the app gives you all the usual scores feeds, news, and links to videos to watch until your eyes glaze over.
Get LiveScore for Android or iOS
Forza
Another live scores football app battling to top the table, Forza doesn’t make a great first impression, with a huge Home tab ad. However, you won’t care when you start exploring. The Transfers feed is fab, as are the match stats – all crystal-clear numbers and colourful graphs. They’ll leave you in no doubt about whether the manager should be locked into a 50-year contract or catapulted into the sea.
Super Arcade Football
When you’ve watched your side plod along for 90 minutes, you’ll want to experience something zippier. This footie game channels the classic Sensi, with dinky players that zoom around, playing a strange concoction of the beautiful game, pinball and outright weirdness once modifiers enter the equation. It’s great fun. A cheap-as-chips (and way cheaper than stadium chips) one-off IAP bins the ads.
Get Super Arcade Football for Android or iOS
Football Manager Touch
This management sim sucks you in so deep that you’ll believe you are a manager, until you angrily bellow at the cat for missing a sitter. On Apple kit, as part of Apple Arcade, it gives you more depth and possibilities for fiddling about than you’ll know what to do with. Not got an Apple Arcade sub? The slightly cut-down Football Manager 2026 Mobile is available for Android and iOS.
Get Football Manager Touch for iOS
Retro Goal
Not keen to battle through entire matches, via arcade larks or a management sim, but still fancy a smattering of both? Retro Goal is the ‘just the highlights’ of footie games on mobile. With its vibrant visuals and touchscreen controls, it’s ideal fodder for thumping five past Man City during a spare five minutes. And although it’s IAP-hungry, you can win for nowt with prudent in-game transfers.
Get Retro Goal for Android or iOS
Craig Grannell
Contributor 
