Before the FIFA World Cup tournament began, WorldSoccer hosted a series of 12 individual polls in order to determine who users see as England’s all-time best manager and all-star 11. The polls were powered by Apester and displayed on WorldSoccer in a playlist, a scalable method of presentation that contextually places Apester units within relevant articles. Almost 17,000 users engaged with the polls, which also asked users how far England would go in the tournament. 43% of users said that England’s run would be terminated at the quarter final; while there is no telling if England will win the quarter final, the 39% that predicted that England would not get past the group stage (14%) and the second round (25%) have been proven incorrect after last night’s dramatic win against Colombia.
(Created with Apester Story)
Former England player and manager Sir Alf Ramsey received 61% of the votes as England’s all-time best manager. The selection comes as no surprise because, as manager, Ramsey guided the England national team to its only World Cup victory in 1966. In fact, in 1967, he was even knighted as a result of the victory.
Members of England’s 1966 team also accounted for other favorites in the poll, including team captain Bobby Moore, who received 52% of votes as best all-time centre back. Bobby Charlton received 39% of votes as all-time striker, Gordon Banks received 52% of votes as goalkeeper, and Nobby Stiles received 42% as left midfielder. Moore, Charlton, Banks, and Stiles are regarded as some of the world’s best players of all time, which is reflected in the poll almost as much as it was in their World Cup victory.
Other notable selections include Steven Gerrard as midfielder (37%), Ashley Cole as left back (42%), and David Beckham as right midfielder (57%). Interestingly, while players from England’s 2018 World Cup squad were included within the poll (Jordan Henderson, Harry Kane, and Raheem Sterling), none of them received a high enough number of votes to merit selection.
WorldSoccer used Apester’s playlist code in order to conduct the poll. The 12 units, each of which asked readers about a different position, were individually matched with relevant articles, and their results were combined in order to form one coherent project. By using contextual matching techniques, Apester’s playlist feature determines the relevance of an Apester unit to an article, and, if relevant, automatically places the unit within the article. Playlist is a code that, when embedded on a website, can distribute content across the entire platform. Playlist is also scalable, meaning that Apester units appear all across a website for every user. Using playlist is the perfect way for a publisher to partner with Apester in order to create special projects like WorldSoccer’s all-star England team and manager.
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England’s starting XI via Worldsoccer.com
Total votes: 16.7K
Starting XI
Gordon Banks
Bobby Moore
Rio Ferdinand
Gary Neville
Ashley Cole
Steven Gerrard
David Beckham
Nobby Stiles
Paul Gascoigne
Bobby Charlton
Alan Shearer
Manager: Alf Ramsey
