Brazil 2014: The Football – Brazuca

Where would the game be without the ball? How many different ways have we improvised over the years, from lightweight beach footballs, tennis balls, cheap plastic footballs to just about anything that looks round.

However, in the professional world of football the industry is a large multi-million business, not just for the supply to the players, but the replica market to the fans.

Along comes the World Cup. The Brazil 2014 event offers the chance for the supplier and manufacturer of the football to produce something new. It’s an odd thought, but footballs are getting rounder! Adidas are the official supplier to FIFA of footballs.

The name Brazuca was chosen by fans, back in 2012. It’s supposed to be a word to describe pride in the Brazilian way of life.

It’ll be produced in Pakistan, after the Chinese failed to keep up with the demand, so a Sialkot ball manufacturing company in Pakistan stepped in and is the producer.  Sialkot is a town in eastern Pakistan, it used to be the major football producer,  exporting about 30 million balls a year,  but India and China have caught up. They now make the footballs for the German Bundesliga, French league and the Champions League.

The Brazuca features a new design and a new panel system. Six identical interlocking panels make up the ball’s synthetic surface, thermally bonded to keep out moisture (and rain).

Prior to the launch the football has undergone extensive testing, through a thorough testing process which has involved more than 600 of the world’s top players and 30 teams in ten countries across three continents. Adidas claim that it is the most tested ball.

Adidas claims the Brazuca has improved touch and accuracy.  Adidas’s football director Matthias Mecking told the BBC :-

We do extensive flight path analysis and the results have shown constant and predictable paths, with deviations hardly recognisable.

They even called in a NASA expert, Dr Rabi Mehta, branch chief at the US space agency’s (Nasa) Ames Research Center in California, and an aerodynamics expert. He explained:-

The most important thing on the soccer ball is how much roughness you have.

The amount of roughness. dictates what the critical speed is going to be at which you get maximum ‘knuckling’ of the ball.

You buy the football, though the match ball though is not cheap. From Adidas it £100. If you fancied the match ball from a match, then FIFA will offer that, but at £107 it is not cheap. Check out the Italy v England ball on FIFA.com. Or maybe a replica from Amazon will do!