{"id":666714,"date":"2026-05-13T13:08:17","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T13:08:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/666714\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T13:08:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T13:08:17","slug":"every-world-cup-puts-a-new-spin-on-the-soccer-ball","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/666714\/","title":{"rendered":"Every World Cup puts a new spin on the soccer ball"},"content":{"rendered":"

On a soccer field at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington, John Goff rummaged through a trash bag filled with his collection of official FIFA World Cup balls.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’ve got Al Rihla \u2014 that was in Qatar from 2022. And this is the current one, the Trionda,\u201d he said, pulling a green, blue and red soccer ball from the bag.<\/p>\n

Goff, a visiting assistant physics professor, is a leading expert in sports physics who has studied how soccer balls move when they are kicked since the 2010 World Cup in Johannesburg, South Africa. He and a team of physicists found that the surface of that 2010 ball was too smooth, making its movement unpredictable and difficult for goalkeepers to track.<\/p>\n

One example was a goal during the tournament\u2019s match between Japan and Denmark<\/a>, which Japan\u2019s Keisuke Honda scored on a long kick.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe had this beautiful kick with very little spin,\u201d Goff said. \u201cAll of a sudden it just looks like it slows a lot during the trajectory and it dropped a little bit on the goalkeeper, who missed it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Sports<\/p>\n

Sports physicists John Goff poses with Trionda, the official FIFA World Cup soccer ball, at the University of Puget Sound’s soccer field. Goff worked with other physicists at the University of Tsukuba in Japan to test the ball’s aerodynamics, ahead of this year’s tournament. <\/p>\n

During those games, players openly criticized<\/a> the ball\u2019s design, including Marcus Hahnemann, a former goalkeeper<\/a> for the U.S. men\u2019s team and the Seattle Sounders.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat one was maybe one of the worst balls I ever played with,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Players can kick a soccer ball to make it curve left or right in midflight (think Bend it like Beckham). But Hahnemann said when they tried to do that during those games \u201csometimes it would go the opposite direction. It just defies physics.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adidas has designed a new ball<\/a> for the World Cup since 1970, starting with the iconic black-and-white checkered Telstar ball, which was designed to be easy to track for people watching matches in black-and-white on TV. The 2010 ball is perhaps the most universally panned, but there have been others people didn\u2019t love \u2014 such as the one used during the 2002 games that players said<\/a> was \u201ctoo light.\u201d All this begs the question: Why change the ball each World Cup instead of sticking to one that works?<\/p>\n

Mike Woitalla has a theory. He is the executive editor at Soccer America<\/a>, an online publication that covers all things soccer.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think they basically want to ramp up the conversation about the ball, because they’re trying to sell it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s official World Cup match ball goes for $170 on Adidas\u2019 website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That being said, Woitalla can think of at least one major improvement to the ball used for a World Cup tournament that changed the game. That ball, called the Azteca, was used during the 1986 matches, when Adidas switched the material from leather to a synthetic material that didn\u2019t get heavier from absorbing water.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that was the kind of technology that did make a difference, and, of course, made it safe, since this is a sport where people head the ball,\u201d Woitalla said.<\/p>\n

Hahnemann, the retired keeper, calls himself a purist; he wants the ball that he practices with to be the same as the one used during matches. Even then, he does think Adidas\u2019 intentions are to make the game better.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don’t know if they do, but that’s their idea. Right?\u201d Hahnemann said. \u201cThey’re trying to keep advancing the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adidas told KNKX that they change the ball, in part, because as soccer evolves, they think the equipment should, too. But it\u2019s also an important symbol of each tournament.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery World Cup is so unique in itself,\u201d said Sol\u00e8ne St\u00f6rmann, the global category director for football hardware at Adidas.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd for us, it’s also important that every World Cup gets also seen in that way, and that every one carries an own individual story and an own individual signature to it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s design comprises only four panels, the fewest of any World Cup soccer ball. It features graphics for the three host countries: a blue star for the U.S., a red maple leaf for Canada and a green eagle for Mexico. Those symbols are also embossed on the surface of the ball. Its name, \u201cTrionda,\u201d is Spanish for three waves.<\/p>\n

\"Adidas<\/p>\n

Adidas created Trionda for this year’s FIFA World Cup. The company has made the soccer ball for each tournament since 1970. <\/p>\n

St\u00f6rmann said that symbolism is part of the story Adidas is trying to tell with the ball.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s linked to this kind of \u2018la ola\u2019 vibe,\u201d she said, using the Spanish word for wave. \u201cThis new \u2018wave\u2019 of football, as we call it, because we see a lot of new young players actually playing the World Cup for the very first time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Back at the soccer field in Tacoma, sports physicist John Goff doesn\u2019t think the Trionda will create the fiasco the 2010 ball did. He worked with other physicists at the University of Tsukuba in Japan to study the ball’s aerodynamics. The researchers in Japan tested the ball in a wind tunnel and he analyzed the results, which are published in the journal Applied Sciences<\/a>. They show that the symbols embossed on the surface of the ball and its grooves make it slightly rougher than its predecessors, which Goff said could cause some minor drag while it is traveling through the air.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy colleagues and I are very interested to see if these balls travel a little less far than the balls have in the past,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

But generally, Goff said, it\u2019s a good, stable ball that he thinks will be a success.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On a soccer field at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington, John Goff rummaged through a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":666715,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":["post-666714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=666714"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666714\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/666715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=666714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=666714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=666714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}