Let me start by saying that I really like the clean look. I'm a fan of flat design. From a design point of view (visually encoding information that is) the layout doesn't make a lot of sense though. Putting one team above the other (as ntaso pointed out) isn't a good idea. Not only does it imply ranking, it also takes away the opportunity to show which team plays on which side and can't handle double-digit scores all that well. "FRA 7 : 11 BRA" works a lot better. I can see why they did it though. If the teams weren't stacked there wouldn't have been any room for the pretty clock (which I like a lot). But that's not how design is supposed to work. The indicators next to the team's names are completely unnecessary. Which score belongs to which team seems fairly obvious.
The info graphics part seems a bit over the top as well. A (animated?) clock icon, the time itself and the subtitle "Local Time" seems a bit redundant. Surely the unit explains what the information is supposed to be. "96,000 people" doesn't need "Attendance" added to it. Let alone the huge icon. The local temperature doesn't have a subtitle and I figured out what it is anyway. And again, the indicators ...
The "POSSESSION" (not sure why this one is all caps) graphic I like. Kind of. Three indicators - really?. The one in the middle makes perfect sense but the other two? The shirts are unnecessary as well. You already have the colours inside the graphic, put the names of the teams in there. The rounded corners don't fit the visual language either; make them square like all the others.
The teams switch side at the beginning of the second half. The team mentioned first is the "host", the team mentioned last the "guest". Who is host and who is guest is decided by a draw in tournaments.
Handling double digit scores is something that you don't need to worry about in football. Not unless it was Brazil versus a local pub team.
LTR implies ranking also, but anyone who has watched a few games of football (other than in the world cup) knows that it actually signifies which teams are home and away.
LTR doesn't imply ranking because we read from left to right (IMHO). Google for ranking and try to find an example that doesn't use top down (Google itself is a good example). FYI, the highest score in a football match is 149:0 (happened in 2002: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AS_Adema_%E2%80%93_SO_l%27Emyr...)
And even during a world cup double-digits can be reached quite easily when the game is decided by penalty shootout.
> LTR doesn't imply ranking because we read from left to right (IMHO).
When we name our company you won't mind if we put my name first then.
> FYI, the highest score in a football match is 149:0
I don't think non-televised protest matches matter. The EPL (probably the most watched league in the world) has literally never produced a double digit scoring match (that's approx. 7980 matches).
> And even during a world cup double-digits can be reached quite easily when the game is decided by penalty shootout.
You're not arguing from knowledge at all, you're just googling shit to be contrary. You don't add the goals from the penalty shootout to the total, they are a separate scoreline.
> When we name our company you won't mind if we put my name first then.
That's an old problem really. Somebody has to go first. Home team over away team, alphabetical order, etc. I think we've solved that problem.
Of course 149:0 isn't representative. Just because it hasn't happened doesn't mean it won't though. The point is you do have to worry about edge cases. Take the ball possession graphic for example: Picture what that might look like for a color blind person. Not all that helpful.
I know they currently keep two different score boards but I'm not sure that has to be that way (could be though - I don't know). The site I use to check the scores merges them after the game but the FIFA website doesn't.
I'm not trying to be contrary btw, and I'm not sure why you're offended. I said I really like the design, but I do think they removed a lot of flexibility and clarity for no reason by changing most of the layout without putting all that much thought into why things look the way the currently look.
I may not know a lot about football but I do know a lot about design. I didn't even talk about the clock which looks gorgeous but (as others already pointed out) doesn't work that well.
You don't have to design around the 0% case, so long as you functionally handle it as this design does.
Incidentally, I'm pretty sure I've seen one of the Spanish stations use the vertical score format, a quick search turns up this (Barcelona vs Real Madrid) [1].
> I know they currently keep two different score boards but I'm not sure that has to be that way
It does have to be, because goals are infrequent it's unfair to add 3 or more goals to a teams tally, the goals can be used to differentiate between teams with the same points in league systems. There's also essentially no limit to the number of penalties that can be taken.
I'm not arguing for this design (though I do like some aspects of it), I'm just defending it against what I see as illegitimate criticism.
The info graphics part seems a bit over the top as well. A (animated?) clock icon, the time itself and the subtitle "Local Time" seems a bit redundant. Surely the unit explains what the information is supposed to be. "96,000 people" doesn't need "Attendance" added to it. Let alone the huge icon. The local temperature doesn't have a subtitle and I figured out what it is anyway. And again, the indicators ...
The "POSSESSION" (not sure why this one is all caps) graphic I like. Kind of. Three indicators - really?. The one in the middle makes perfect sense but the other two? The shirts are unnecessary as well. You already have the colours inside the graphic, put the names of the teams in there. The rounded corners don't fit the visual language either; make them square like all the others.
The "Formation screen" is okay I guess.