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| Smarter soccer balls |
May 9, 2006 |
By Ian Harvey
Even though the “smartballs” won’t be making their debut at this year’s World Cup, the Adidas balls used in the tournament won’t exactly be dumb.
Instead of the traditional 32 panels, the new Teamgiest ball has a mere 14 panels in a unique pattern. (The traditional black and white bucky-ball is composed of 20 hexagonal and 12 pentagonal sections, and is named for architect Richard Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic domes.)
The trick is to reduce the number of panels while still giving the ball the structure to retain its perfect sphericity, despite the abuse it receives during a game, said designer Anatol Just of Adidas.
“In the old construction it was hand-stitched and that created stress on the material,” he said. “Also, the points where seams joined were hard and didn’t dissipate the energy the same way when kicked.”
Thermobonding—a process in which the carcass of the ball, the bladder and the panels are glued together in a mold and then pressure heated—results in a strong structure with a consistency throughout its surface that makes it aerodynamically more stable. The shell also incorporates a foam layer which allows better energy transference.
“Compared to the older balls this performs much better and is faster because the energy isn’t all absorbed when it is kicked,” said Just, whose team spent a year alone on the graphics adorning the ball.
In a master stroke of product placement, Adidas has supplied every World Cup ball since 1970 and it will again be the centre of attraction this year in front of a cumulative worldwide TV audience of 10 billion people.
The modern ball is also more standard in shape. FIFA allows a full centimetre of margin but Teamgiest is consistent to 0.25 cm. Its weight is also more consistent at 441 to 445 grams.
To be FIFA approved, balls must also pass seven tests involving a torture chamber collection of machines which stretch, stomp and pound them to simulate thousands of hours of play. There’s even a robotic kicking machine which whacked the Teamgiest a savage 3,500 times at 50km per hour before it was subject to shape and consistency examinations.
But how much further can, or should, technology transform the sport? For a game played over hundreds of years but only modernized in 1863 with a set of standard rules, at its heart soccer is about as low tech as you can get. All you really need is a ball, a defined flat surface and makeshift goals.
Traditionalists argue the human error component of the game is part of its intrinsic charm. Even FIFA honcho Sepp Blatter said “football must keep its human face and must accept errors. If we start to make it too scientific this game will lose its fascination.”
Besides, too much tech might mean the end of post-game arguments at the pub, and there’s nothing like hot air and cold beer.
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