Charles Apple

Last night I, saw what I think is perhaps my favorite World Cup graphic so far. At the very least, it’s the one that’s made me smile the most:

This came late last night from Adam McHugh of the Register Star of Rockford, Ill., who wrote:

Attached is our World Cup preview doubletruck, a tag-team effort between illustrator Kelley Simms and myself.

We came up with the idea to showcase the best players in the world as if they were on a foosball table. Kelley knocked it out of the park on the illustration.

I’ll say he did:

Not only did this impressive display of doubletruck wit insert on Friday, it was also promoted with this fun front page, with a headline that takes off from the old Monday Night Football theme song:

I took a spin through the international papers posted at the Newseum this morning to see if there’s anything I should show you. There are hundreds — literally hundreds — of papers there that featured the World Cup on page one today. This really is the biggest news story in the world right now. Everywhere except in the U.S.

My two favorites were, oddly enough, both from Toronto, Canada.

The National Post went with the featurey, sociological angle of what the Cup means to South Africa. It led with a Getty Images picture of young Africans playing soccer in their homeland:

The Globe and Mail, on the other hand, went with the newsier angle of Friday’s opening match between South Africa and Mexico:

That picture — also from Getty images — of the South African team celebrating its one goal with an ecstatic crowd in the stands behind them is one of the better shots I’ve seen from Friday’s action.

Next up: A few Cup pages from India. These came overnight from Iam Sajeevkumar T.K., visual editor of Kaumudi, a 150,000-circulation Malayalam-language daily in Kerala, India.

This was Friday’s preview front page, featuring a player from Argentina:

Here is today’s front page, featuring game action from Friday’s South Africa vs. Mexico match:

And this is the cover of a special World Cup section that inserted today, TKSajeev says. The lead art is from Friday’s opening ceremonies:

And finally, a bit of fun…

If you’re like me, you probably don’t really understand soccer all that well. Luckily for us, the Onion is here to help with an interactive guide to the field and typical positions:

Hmm. On second thought, it’s not really helpful at all. But it is funny as hell. Check it out here.

In addition, former Miami Herald humor columnist Dave Barry explains why folks in the U.S. should give a crap about soccer and the World Cup. Read it here.

Thanks to the Nation’s Greg Mitchell for posting both of those links Friday.

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Are you doing anything interesting for the World Cup? Send me PDFs, please.

Previous World Cup coverage, here in the blog:

• Sunday, June 6: Preparing readers for the World’s Cup
• Monday, June 7: Monday’s World Cup pages
• Wednesday, June 8: World Cup pages from South Africa
• Thursday, June 9: Talking soccer graphics with Konstantinos Antonopoulos
• Thursday, June 9: Tooting horns for the World Cup
• Friday, June 10: Opening day pages
• Saturday, June 11: The front page of Saturday’s Johannesburg paper.

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 12th, 2010 at 10:43 am and is filed under Amusing stuff, Graphics, International newspapers, News design, Sports design, World Cup. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.