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official ball and Geometry
Above High speed airflow
path lines showing the velocity of the +Teamgeist. Source Fluent Inc.
Teamgeist - the
2006 FIFA World Cup official
Italy win
World Cup on penalties
The +Teamgeist ball
is the official football for the FIFA World Cup
2006. Teamgeist means "team spirit" in German
language.
This new ball is
made by Adidas, which has provided the balls
used in all World Cup matches since the 1970
World Cup when the famous Telstar was
introduced, which defined the look of a typical
football ever since with its 12 black pentagons
in 20 white hexagon, making the ball
topologically equivalent to a truncated
octahedron or bucky ball.
This new ball was developed with the most recent
technology, for the first time now it's possible
to achieve a perfect and unique geometry of a
perfect sphere and a smooth touch.
These two characteristic will allow a new way of
control, now the player can for sure place the
ball where he wants and it will have the same
behavior under any kind of situation.
For the first time
in the history of football or soccer, the Final of the
2006 FIFA World Cup, on July 9 will be played
using a ball specially designed for the occasion
by Adidas. Another first is that the balls used
throughout the tournament will feature the name
of the stadium, the teams taking part in that
particular match, the date and the kick-off
time.
Circumference: The FIFA approved standard: 68.5
cm – 69.5 cm. The Adidas +Teamgeist: 69.0 cm.
A team of researchers, led by Dr Matt Carré at the
Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of
Sheffield, used the most advanced software, known as Computational
Fluid Dynamics (CFD), for simulating the physics of airflows in and
around objects. They studied and compared airflows around four
balls, all with different panel designs, each having been used at
different periods over the past 36 years, up to, and including the
new Adidas ball to be used in the 2006 World Cup.
University PhD student and Sheffield FC player Sarah Barber,
alongside Dave Mann, Principal Engineer at
Fluent, used a 3D laser scanner,
similar to those used in Formula 1 motor racing, to obtain accurate
surface detail of each individual ball, including their stitches and
seam patterns. They demonstrated that the shape, surface and
asymmetry of the ball, as well as its initial orientation, has a
profound effect on how the ball moves through the air after it is
kicked. The side force varies according to the orientation of the
ball relative to its flight, meaning that for a kick where the ball
is slowly rotating, the side force could fluctuate causing it to
swerve. Ultimately the nature of the swerve is affected by the
initial orientation of the ball before it is kicked.
In collaboration with Dr Takeshi Asai at the University of
Tsukuba in Japan, the team used wind tunnel measurements to verify
their CFD studies and demonstrated that in match conditions the drag
of non-spinning soccer balls has fallen by as much as 30% over the
last 36 years. Newer balls, like the one to be used in the World Cup
this summer, which manufacturers claim to be rounder and which have
more uniform seam geometry, have been found to be more consistent in
high speed kicks with little or no spin.