The soccer ball V2.0

“The rounder the ball, the more balanced it is in flight and thus the more accurately it can be kicked. The +Teamgeist is extremely consistent regardless of where it is struck,” said André Pechtold, Project Leader of Technical Development at adidas. This was demonstrated in part by tests in the adidas testing lab, in which the ball was “kicked” repeatedly at a target by a high-tech robotic leg with precisely adjustable force and at a precisely adjustable angle. “With the new ball, the range in variation of the trajectory is one-third smaller than with the previous model,” said Pechtold.

Soccer is played in just about any weather, and only a few of the stadiums for World Cup 2006 have roofs that can be closed at the push of a button. The +Teamgeist therefore has to retain its excellent properties even if it rains or the grass is wet. It is, in fact, practically impermeable to water. When placed in a tank filled with water and rotated 250 times, its weight increases by a maximum of 0.1 percent. This easily exceeds the strict standards for the “FIFA Approved” quality seal, which allows for a weight gain of up to 10 percent in this test.

The materials experts at Bayer, who have been supporting adidas in the development of World Cup soccer balls since 1984, played a major role in the weather-resistance of the +Teamgeist. “One factor for the low water absorption are the properties of the Impranil raw materials in the coating. Furthermore, the “Thermo-Bonding Technology” used makes the +Teamgeist essentially seamless,” said Michaelis. This bonding technology was developed and patented by adidas. A raw material from Bayer MaterialScience is used here as well: The thermoactivated adhesive is based on a waterborne polyurethane dispersion from the Dispercoll U product line.

The development of the soccer ball

adidas started developing high-performance match balls in 1963, when most balls were heavy, brown and painful to kick. When FIFA first commissioned adidas to provide the Official Match Ball for the 1970 FIFA World Cup in Mexico, the company had already become the world’s leading football brand.

adidas Telstar - 1970 FIFA World Cup Mexico

Like all other balls in its time, the adidas Telstar was completely made of leather; however, unlike any other ball it featured 32 hand-stitched panels (12 black pentagons and 20 white hexagons), creating the roundest sphere of its time.

The revolutionary design of Telstar wrote football history: it was the first white football ever to be decorated with black pentagons. Mexico 1970 was the first live televised FIFA World Cup and the revolutionary design of Telstar - the name derives from “Star of Television” – made the ball far more visible on black and white television. Until this day, the adidas Telstar remains the archetype of all generic footballs.

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