Designed by PUCRS, Globall Football 2018 can be downloaded for free
Photo: Bruno Todeschini
Nutmeg, diving header, Pelé runaround move and rainbow flick. These are some of the 300 soccer expressions that are presented in Portuguese, English or Spanish on app Globall Football 2018, developed by PUCRS’ Research Group in Olympic Studies (GPEO). Because Russia is now the World Cup host, the app now brings the expressions in a fourth language: Russian. This technology has been designed for several target audiences, but especially for tourists and communications professionals. This project involved the School of Health Sciences (Physical Education program), School of Humanities (Letters program) and the School of Communication, Arts and Design – Famecos.
The app is at no charge and can be downloaded to cell phones and tablets with Android or iOS. It features expressions divided into categories, such as: arbitration, areas of the field, action, equipment, people, positions, tactics and terms of the game. Each entry comes with a definition, context and related sports news reports.
“This new version comes with increased interface efficiency and speed of access to entries when compared to the 2014 World Cup app, in Brazil. The app is also available for Apple gadgets”, says Famecos professor, Dr Eduardo Pellanda.
The greatest challenges for Globall Football 2018 were providing definitions and contexts for the entries in Russian, a language that uses a different alphabet. This made PUCRS to think about its viability. “The partnership with the Russian International Olympic University was of utmost importance for the translation of items and this made it much less complicated. In this scenario, this product is timeless. And we expect to have expressions in Arabic for the World Cup in Qatar in 2022”, says professor Dr Nelson Todt, coordinator of GPEO at the University. Voice commands might be implemented for 2022 as well.
The idea
Photo: Bruno Todeschini
The app came out of a glossary that was being developed by PUCRS’ GPEO for the World Cup in 2014. “At first, the interdisciplinary work involved professors and students of the Physical Education and Letters programs of the University. When we were working on the glossary in Portuguese, Spanish and English, we thought about making our product more accessible and, consequently, more popular. Then, the group decided to design an app. This part of the job involved the partnership with PUCRS’ Laboratory of Research in Mobility and Media Convergence (Ubilab)”, stated Todt.
Features of Russian language
Check out some of the unique features of the Russian Language provided by Dr Cristina Perna and Dr Heloísa Delgado from the Letters program, who coordinated the project:
– Cyrillic alphabet consisting of 33 letters including the hard and soft signs “Ь” and “Ъ”. These signs do not have a sound, but can soften or intensify the pronunciation of the preceding consonant.
– The spelling and pronunciation of six letters are similar to Portuguese: A, E, K, M, O and T.
– Some vowels have an unusual pronunciation. “O” sounds like “A” when it is not stressed.
– Words do not have accent marks. This means that learners must learn the correct pronunciation from the very beginning.
– The language has three genders: masculine, feminine and neutral.
– There are six grammatical cases. Nouns, pronouns and adjectives are declined accordingly.
Check out some of the expressions in the app:
| Portuguese | Spanish | English | Russian |
| Lambreta | Sombrero | Rainbow flick / Rainbow kick | Финт “Радуга” |
| Drible meia lua / Drible da vaca | Auto-pase | Pelé runaround move | Обход Пеле |
| Goldfish plant | Palomita/Remate en Plancha | Diving header | Удар в падении головой |
| Túnel | Caño | Nutmeg | Проброс мяча между ног соперника |
To download the app:
Android: bit.ly/GloballFootball2018_Android
iOS: bit.ly/GloballFootball2018_iOS