Like something you’d buy in the close-out bin at Walmart… It’s psycho – a mind of its own – a bona fide disaster… all these comments and more are about the ball chosen this year for the World Cup. The ball, made by Adidas, is named the Jabulani from the Zulu word meaning to celebrate.
So just what is the problem with the Jabulani that has earned it so much derision?
Adidas designed and built the ball…it took a total of five years of effort and they thought they had a ball that everyone would LOVE because it would be the most advanced soccer ball ever made. Alas the reality is something all together different than Adidas had in mind.
Some observers even went so far as to say that the ball was behind the English tie with the U.S.A.
Clint Dempsey from the team USA has been reported to have said “ you know, that ball is very difficult to read. It moves a lot”. Clint scored one of the most amazing and important goals in U.S. soccer history and he is giving part of the credit to this goofy ball. That Clint, what a guy.
Everyone seems to think that the ball moves erratically – some say it dives on its own and of its own timing. This predilection for strange motion has gotten more than a couple of folks charged with a hand ball. Those hand balls turned into penalty kicks and even decided a game for Ghana.
This ball has lots of grooves that other balls have not had. While this has not seemed to make a difference at a high altitude, at the World Cup it has been consistently reported that the ball behaves in ways unlike most other soccer balls… not unlike a baseball that has been “helped” to have unique aerodynamics.
Adidas has been panned before about their soccer balls in 1970. That time, the criticism was just about the same but the black and white ball, that we all know so well today, went on to be the most popular soccer ball in the world.
The one thing to watch is that the winning teams never have that many negative things to say about the Jabulani ball while the losers add it to their story for why they got beat. Who knows, in 40 years the Jabulani ball too could emerge as the best loved soccer ball in the world just because it is so crazy.
