The biggest sporting event is here as the World Cup kicks off in Russia tonight and while it’s the moment football fans have been waiting for, it’s a long summer of embarrassments if you had no clue about how the game works like. For those of you who want to avoid the awkward moments for the month of football that awaits, Alexa has got your back.
While the Google Assistant and Apple Siri have already gotten on board by adding fixtures, teams, and facts for the course of the tournament, Amazon has just updated its voice assistant Alexa with a set of new commands that you can ask in order to prep yourself for the grandest footballing event. The questions can be asked to any of Amazon’s Echo speakers or on the dedicated Alexa app on a smartphone to help yourself gather trivia about the World Cup in general.
Though the questions are devised to help a temporary once-in-four-years football fan get through the next month without being left out of a discussion, the Alexa update might even help out a Football-phobic person bluff their way out of awkward moments. The trivia commands might also come in handy when brushing up on your linguistic knowledge about the game.
You can ask Alexa when France last won the World Cup or ask for detailed stats about Germany’s Mesut Özil. For those of you who’re interested to learn more about football, Alexa is letting you ask complex questions like “what’s parking-the-bus in football” or definitions about certain in-depth terminologies like a “false nine” or a “trequartista”.
And if you just want a basic gist of everything without searching for exact details, Alexa has you covered here as well. Simply ask Alexa “how do I bluff my way through the World Cup?” and the voice assistant will provide you with a summary of daily events during the course of the World Cup. For full schedules and stories about the event, you can ask “Alexa, what’s the latest with the World Cup?”
What else can you try with Alexa?
Amazon has scripted and prepared hundreds of questions that revolve around football and World Cup, including detailed stats, names of players in a team and some tactics that teams generally use and positional plays of players on the pitch. Here are some:
“Alexa, when’s the first World Cup game?”
“Alexa, what teams are in the World Cup?”
“Alexa, who scored for France?”
“Alexa, when do Iceland play next in the World Cup?”
“Alexa, why do international footballers win ‘caps’?”
“Alexa, what is ‘putting it in the mixer’ in football?”
“Alexa, what is pressing in football?”
“Alexa, what is a ‘false nine’ in football?”
“Alexa, what is ‘parking the bus’ in football?”
“Alexa, what does it mean when a football player plays ‘in the hole’?”
“Alexa, what country has won the most World Cups?”
“Alexa, what group is Sweden in for the World Cup?”
“Alexa, what is ‘Row Z’ in football?”
“Alexa, what is counter-attacking in football?”
“Alexa, what is an advantage in football?”