For those who are not able to watch World Cup soccer in the stadium, at a public viewing or in a pub, there are plenty of other opportunities to experience the international soccer championship. At DW-WORLD.DE, users can even get live updates every 60 seconds on their cell phones or the Internet.

Game reports are published online in DW-WORLD's seven pilot languages: German, English, Spanish, Chinese, Portuguese, Russian and Arabic. During the round-of-16 games, we took a peek over the shoulders of tickerers from the various departments to see what their job is like.

Ronaldinho and Geraldinho

The game starts at 5 p.m. About two hours beforehand, the online journalists meet to take care of the final preparations for the live tickering. They have already informed themselves about the teams, players and coaches by taking a look at the game reports, news agency reports and Internet sources.

"I've read about the countries that the participating teams are from. There are often celebrities in the stadium from the various countries and I was to let my readers know about them too," said online journalist Geraldo Hoffmann from the Portuguese department. He used to play soccer himself in his hometown Antonio Carlos in southern Brazil.

Hoffmann conducted an interview for DW-WORLD.DE with Brazilian soccer star Ronaldinho. Since the interview, all of his co-workers have been calling him "Geraldinho", a nickname he's happy to put up with. As far as the World Cup goes, Geraldo is confident that Brazil will come out on top.

Alexander and the underdogs

The online journalists usually watch the games from their editorial offices. During the game, they count all the fouls, free kicks, red cards and yellow cards and enter that data into the computer.

Alexander Delphinov's fingers race over the keyboard during the game, but his eyes don't budge from the TV screen. He doesn't want to miss a play -- and at the rate he's going, he won't. The users are counting on him to deliver all the action. Ticker reports are usually sent every two to three minutes, but Alexander tries to update his reports every 60 seconds.

"Some of the games are really gripping and then my commentary can get kind of emotional. As a reader or listener myself, I love the more emotional commentary anyway. Boring or neutral reports don't really get me in the right soccer mood," said Delphinov.

Delphinov, from Russia, prefers the underdog teams and has been rooting for the African teams in this World Cup. Unfortunately he'll have to find a new favorite now that Ivory Coast, Angola, Ghana, Togo and Tunisia have already been disqualified.

10 euros for a German title

While the Russians ticker in Cyrillic, the Chinese in Chinese characters and the Arabs from right to left, one of few commonalities between the departments is the players' names. For the World Cup, the departments transcribed all the names of the participating players in their respective alphabets and saved them for reference.

"When a player gets a free kick, scores a goal or gets substituted," explained Nasser Shrouf from the Arabic department, "I just pull up my list, copy the name in Arabic script and paste it into the report."

An experienced journalist, Shrouf doesn't just ticker soccer tournaments. He also "tickers" important political events, such a parliamentary debates, and sends the information live to the Arab world. His World Cup favorite is Germany and he has even bet 10 euros on Klinsi's eleven.

Festival of flags

In the Spanish department, there is currently a healthy mix of internationalism and patriotism. Not only Spanish flags but also flags from the other 31 participating countries have found a place in the Spanish editorial office. With the whirr of telephoning co-workers in the background, Pablo Kummetz sits perfectly calmly at his desk to ticker the Italy-Australia round-of-16 game.

"We have to be quick and concise, since live tickering is often picked up by cell phones with internet connections," said Kummetz as he proudly pulled out his own PDA and checked its connection to DW.WORLD-DE's live ticker.

Asian Azzurri fans

Chinese journalist Wang Shu would rejoice over an Italian World Cup victory. Shu tickers the World Cup games for enthusiastic soccer fans in Asia.

"By now I'm quite familiar with German soccer. At Deutsche Welle I used to commentate the Bundesliga games for radio. I also write articles on German soccer for 'Titan Sports', the largest Chinese sports newspaper. Personally, I'm an AC-Milan fan and would be really glad to see the Italians win this World Cup," said Shu.

Radio ties

Online and radio journalist John Kluempers from the English department prefers to ticker from one of DW-RADIO's sound-proof studios.

"Tickering is a lot like commentating on the radio. The reports don't have to be too serious, so it's fun to do. The game reports that the online journalists write using the live ticker information have to be objective and neutral, though," said Kluempers.

Stadium feeling everywhere

"When a lot is happening on the field at once, it can really make you sweat if you're tickering," said Wim Abbink from the German department.

"But I'd rather have the stress than a boring game where nothing happens. In the exciting games I tried to pick up on the fans' mood and pass it on to the users so they get a bit of stadium atmosphere too."

Abbink sits in the German editorial office and stares at the monitor in front of him. He doesn't want to miss a thing, so that he'll be able to refer back to the plays in future tricky game situations.