If you've been following World Cup tourneys through the noughties, you'll have noticed that criticizing the official tournament ball has turned into something of an unspoken tradition. The latest offender of football purists' stringent standards is the Adidas Jabulani ball, which was introduced especially for
World Cup 2010. That wouldn't be notable in itself, but this time it's apparently gotten bad enough for NASA to pipe up and drop some science on the subject. The aerodynamics experts (at least we hope they're experts) of the American space agency have said that the 440-gram ball becomes unpredictable when propelled at over 44mph, resulting in the unnatural swerves and deviations that have been plaguing footballers this year. So there you have it, England, Italy and France: a rock solid excuse to pin your lackadaisical exhibitions of mediocrity this year -- it was
the ball's fault.
posted July 7th 2010 9:59AM
@JDGAFFLIN Good point. Did NASA consider the effects of the vuvuzela harmonics on the ball too? I'd imagine that pulsating air would also have an effect. Is it possible that the vuvulezas create a some type of characteristic barrier barrier between the air at or below ten or so feet? Oh what else could we start baming?
@JDGAFFLIN
HOLLAND!
Screw NASA! What do the kids at MIT have to say?
Van Bronckhorst might disagree.
Oranje!
ZIS BALL WAS SPECIFICALLY MANUFACTURED TO SUPPORT ZE GERMAN FOOTBALL STYLE
We would have won ze Weltkrieg wiff zis wunderwaffe! it's ze V-Ball! Vergeltung against ze british!
@Hannes The Hun well i hope it support them today as good as against argentinia
@B1ASPHEMY
(Pilot Version not Selena Gomez)
Ho, ho, ho
It's germany!, you know never believe it's not so
It's germany!, you know never believe, it's not so
YEs I recon Jabulani is very heavy and is to what has lead to the ball swerving :P
The Dutch won their semi-final tie not because of this jabulani ball. They won coz they had the home advantage. Check the history books if you have forgotten who the Boers are and where they are @.
And next time around give the Africans gourds to kick around not dead skin made out of their favourite cow! Too much respect for the cattle so cant injure its dead skin. If you dont believe me ask any jujuman you see next.......
Yeah. Right. Whatever. oh wait ... is that why USA lost in the first round?
Well, this is actually significant, despite everyone who thinks otherwise.
If we made the aerodynamic issues with the ball a bit more obvious, say at speeds above 20mph it just drops like a rock. As soon as any team took a 1 goal lead, they could just push up, have the defenders stand still, and force the other team to always shoot from as far away from the goal as possible. The ball would pretty much never make it in. Guaranteed.
At some point, physics of a major component in a sport can render the game unplayable, regardless of the skill anyone has. It's like arguing that a skilled gambler can turn the odds in his favor - no. Can't be done. The games are engineered so that the house wins. When balls start having a random and unpredictable behavior, no amount of skill can compensate for it.
By definition, skill involves training oneself for repeatable situations. Imparting a particular spin or curvature to the ball, being able to pass it directly to a team member while taking into account your relative trajectories, velocity, and separation distance. If a ball behaves randomly, you can never acquire any skill in handling it. At that point, what is the point of even playing?
Lol. best comparison i've seen so far ...so true
Dammit NASA you need to mind your own business and stick to your primary mission: Reaching out to the Muslim world and extending our appreciation for their contributions to science and math. Geeesh.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/07/05/nasa-chief-frontier-better-relations-muslims/
why dont they just make a flippin soccer ball? you know a regular buckyball shaped ball with alternating color spaces. stop tinkering with the ball and making it with different shapes.
12 pentagons , 20 hexagons, stitched not glued. done.
@charlied
70 mm and half a kilo
So the ball makes the game a little more interesting and people cry? How exciting is a 0-0 tie anyways?
Great, this is the first positive contribution of the US to the worldcup, ever.
@JFH
second :the first contribution was the goal against England.
Everyone's playing with the same ball, so I don't see why it should matter. Sure, maybe it swirves unnaturally giving Keeper's trouble. But its not like it's just one team that has to deal with that obstacle. Every team does. The matches are still fair.
That explains out all
Did Jobs have a part in designing this ball? Hmmmm...
I doubt this is adding anything new to the debate, and posting so late means no-one will read this, but: in sports featuring spherical balls, the way in which you hit/kick/throw/pitch/bowl can have a huge effect on its course. The problem with this Jabulani ball is that (in some specific circumstances) it behaves in a dramatically different way to other footballs generally, and the thousands of hours elite players have spent to get to that stage then count for a lot less. Yes, all teams use the same ball and suffer the same negatives, but you CAN blame it for less skilful play/missed goals because it doesn't act in the way that everyone has spent years getting used to.
Imagine you're a kick*ss console gamer, then someone changed the sensitivity of your analog stick, even to the smallest degree. All your well-honed instincts would be slightly off as a result, and you simply would not play as well as you had previously until you adjusted to the new situation- something that takes significant amounts of time and effort.
Its hilarious how the Jabulani ball was given to the German Bundesliga for a whole season, but not to Spanish Liga...who's ahead now? LoL
@g0ldenpr0phet
It was available for any league that wanted it.
Our finnish league Veikkausliiga did start using it the same time as Bundesliga.
Thought other leagues probally had contracts with other brand, but the point is that anybody could have used it not just Bundesliga.
We already knew that the odd construction of the ball was causing kicks to be well off the normal path a ball would take. Nike had offered their new (and awe-inspiring) ball for the world cup, which had very favourable reviews, but I think adidas has history Nike doesn't have. A shame really as many what would have been fantastic goals had been missed because of odd aerodynamics.
The Italians, French, Germans, English, Brazilians and Argentines - all dumped out before their time - are the only ones capable of kicking it hard enough ;). Even the Germans, who used the ball for an entire year in the Bundesliga (that's a German word), couldn't get used to it. But thanks NASA for pointing it out. Great use of $17bn a year...
actually Vlad, NASA's conclusions are not negative. While it is true that the ball becomes unpredictable at 45 mph, that's actually an improvement over previous "regular" balls as they became unpredictable at around 30 mph... So... NASA may say that this doesn't have great aerodynamics (for a spaceship)... it certainly has good aerodynamics for a soccer ball!