{"id":692509,"date":"2026-07-15T06:20:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T06:20:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/692509\/"},"modified":"2026-07-15T06:20:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T06:20:12","slug":"world-cup-2026-why-is-there-a-new-ball-in-the-semi-finals-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/692509\/","title":{"rendered":"World Cup 2026: Why is there a new ball in the semi-finals?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Fifa said: &#8220;Uniquely, Trionda Final celebrates the 16 iconic host cities that have welcomed the world for the biggest Fifa World Cup ever.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;As host of the semi-finals, bronze final and final, Dallas, Atlanta, Miami and New York New Jersey are prominently featured within the main blocking of the design. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Meanwhile, Boston, Guadalajara, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Monterrey, Philadelphia, San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, Toronto and Vancouver are incorporated within the triangular graphic elements, ensuring their significant contributions to the success of the tournament are recognised right through to the final whistle.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Fifa says the final ball has up-to-date AI technology &#8220;delivering precise ball data in real time to support faster decision-making by match officials, while enhancing insights into the game&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">This article is the latest from BBC Sport&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/ask-me-anything\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ask Me Anything<\/a> team.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fifa said: &#8220;Uniquely, Trionda Final celebrates the 16 iconic host cities that have welcomed the world for the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":692353,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-692509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=692509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692509\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/692353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=692509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=692509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=692509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}