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Jabulani
Adidas Jabulani

The official match ball for the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

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The Story So Far

  • Jun 14, 2010
Rating:
-2
Every time the World Cup comes around, there are a bevy of complaints about the futuristic new ball, and every time, the matches have played pretty much the same as they had before. So when the complaints came about adidas' Jabulani ball, I took them with a grain of salt.

That said, if there is any big story on the field of the first four days, it's the ball. The two big footballing stories are: poor goalkeeping, and poor long shots.

Five goals have been scored thanks to comedic goalkeeper errors, and all but one of them was a goal that either tied the match or gave one side the lead. Three crosses have been horribly misplayed: South Korea's first goal, Germany's second, and Italy's equalizer. Algeria's goalkeeper also totally misplayed a fairly average shot, and England's Robert Green let the American equalizer right through his hands. Although the ball isn't necessarily the chief factor for all of these goals (and certainly not in Green's case), these errors are starting to look like a pattern.

Still, goals, even scored from errors, aren't necessarily bad. The lack of accurate long-range shooting is bad, as those are often some of the most exciting goals in any soccer game. On the very first day, France's Yoann Gourcouff decided to test the waters with half a dozen long-range efforts, most all of which sailed well wide or over the net. He's not the only one, just the most prolific. The simply fact is that long range shots, either from free kicks or from the run of play, are coming nowhere near the goal.

It's a fairly small sample size of eleven games, but if these trends continue, then the relatively unexciting games so far may prove the rule, and not the exception. And the Jabulani ball will be the object that defines the 2010 World Cup, not the vuvuzela.

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June 27, 2010
Hard to know if it's the ball or just coincidence, but two nearly identical goals in two days - Klose's against England and Gyan's winner against the USA - both came off of high bounces anticipated by the strikers and misunderstood by the defenders. If it is a trait of the ball, then maybe long-ball style direct play will come back into style. Yay?
 
June 17, 2010
Two more interesting notes I picked up from the announcers of the Argentina-Korea match:

Sven Goran Eriksson is calling for a coaches' conference regarding the ball. Fat chance of it happening or anything coming of it, but I support this if only to see Dunga and Maradona arguing over Robert's Rules.

The German Bundesliga, where most if not all of the German players play, have been using the ball since the start of the year. That may help put their dominant performance against Australia into perspective.
June 17, 2010
That interesting. I doubt anything will come of a coaches' conference but I'm diggin' the Budesliga facts!
 
June 16, 2010
Interesting!  I've heard much talk about this ball, but not as much as I have about the vuvuzela.  I didn't realize that a ball could affect the game so much, but that makes perfect sense. ...Which leads me to wonder, did the people who make this ball put the research necessary into making it?  Especially if it's for such a huge event.  Thanks for sharing, Rowan!
 
1
More Adidas Jabulani reviews
review by . July 04, 2010
posted in FIFA World Cup 2010: South Africa
The ball with a mind of its own.
   The ball is cursed people!  Have u been watching the cup?  I have seen nearly every game and goalkeepers keep scratching their heads.  I loved it when the goalie from Ghana actually mimicked what the ball did in the air after he had been scored on. Yea it moved back and forth two times.  This ball is great for Germany because the German pro league has been using the ball for the past year.  Players hated the ball before the Cup and they hate it more even now.  …
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The Adidas Jabulani is the official match ball for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. The ball was unveiled in Cape Town, South Africa, on December 4, 2009. Jabulani  means "rejoice" in Zulu, and was developed at Loughborough University, UK.

The ball was also used as the match ball of 2009 FIFA Club World Cup in the United Arab Emirates, and a special version of the ball, the Jabulani Angola, was the match ball of the 2010 African Cup of Nations. This ball was also used in the 2010 Clausura Tournament of Argentina as well as the 2010 MLS season in the USA in the league's colours of blue and green.
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