The FIFA Club World Cup ball, scientifically tested

New York Times

9 hours ago

Did you expect it to be anything other than stars and stripes?
At the end of January, Adidas unveiled the match ball for this summer's Club World Cup, which will be played in the United States from this weekend.
In a press release, Adidas' general manager for football, Sam Handy, said the sports-equipment empire spent a year and a half 'honing' the ball's design, 'with a clear ambition to create something bold, loud, iconic — and unmistakably American'.
And yet the name is rather plain: the FIFA Club World Cup 25 Pro Ball.
For the 2023 Club World Cup and the Intercontinental Cup, which replaced the previous annual format, last year, Adidas made tournament-specific versions of its Conext brand ball, using the same technology that produced the Al Rihla for the 2022 men's World Cup in Qatar.
Those balls were 100 per cent polyurethane, whereas the 2025 model is a mix of polyurethane (61 per cent), recycled polyester (30 per cent) and viscose (nine per cent). Like with the Fussballliebe used at last year's European Championship, Adidas is trying to work with more sustainable materials.
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Of course, how a ball looks is mostly superficial — although certain patterns are more readable when it is flying and spinning through the air. The way it responds and moves when struck matters so much more.
To understand that, we took the ball to Loughborough University. It is England's premier sporting and sports research university, boasting a bespoke 'kicking robot' that can only be found elsewhere at the headquarters of Adidas and its fellow sporting-goods giant Nike.
Before taking it into the lab, three Loughborough players each tested it against the three models used in English football last season: the Nike Flight from the Premier League, Puma's Orbita 1 ball for the Carabao Cup and Mitre's FA Cup Ultimax Pro.
With each one, players took five dead-ball kicks at the goal from 24 yards, using a technique of their choosing.
A high-speed camera was set up perpendicular to the ball, collecting slow-motion footage (at 1,000 frames per second) that the researchers put through an in-house algorithm to calculate shot velocity and spin.
There were no significant differences in speed and spin between the strikes with different balls in robot testing, but 'some noticeable differences' when human players had a go, according to Professor Andy Harland, who analysed the testing data.
Overall, the trio spun the Club World Cup ball more than both the Puma and Nike ones (but not the Mitre) — one player spun it over twice as much as the Nike design used in the Premier League.
It was a small sample, but all three players recorded their fastest strike with the Club World Cup ball. 'It hits truer for the professionals,' one player explained after.
'You had to hit it more precisely,' the players said, noting the Club World Cup ball has a smaller 'sweet spot' than the others.
However, with the robot testing, which Harland says 'should give a near-identical kick each time' due to the 'fixed' leg speed and ball position, the Club World Cup ball was not the fastest.
The players explained how different it felt to kick: 'especially the Adidas (Club World Cup) ball, that felt rock-hard,' one said. 'It has no grip. Because you have the little grooves, you spin it more,' another added.
Two came to a similar conclusion on its best use: 'Probably better in open play. It would be good to hit a long pass with, a grasscutter (a long pass, kept low to the floor) would be perfect.'
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The balls were all made in Pakistan, where most of the world's footballs are produced, and the construction of the Club World Cup edition is why players perceive such differences when kicking it.
Adidas calls it PRECISIONSHELL — full caps, sounding like something out of Mario Kart — which is a 20-panel design with 'strategically-placed debossed grooves' to control airflow.
The technology with which the 'high-grade butyl bladder' is made and implemented, Adidas says, improves the consistency of its flight and shape retention. Adidas has such confidence in this design that it markets it with a two-year shape 'guarantee'.
Within the ball, a motion sensor (powered by a rechargeable battery) sends live data at a rate of 500 times per second. Officials will use it, with player positioning data, to implement an 'advanced version' of semi-automated offside, and it can help identify exactly who has touched the ball.
The difference between the Club World Cup ball and the previous one Adidas supplied for an international tournament in the U.S. — the Fevernova, at the 2003 Women's World Cup, which was also used for the men's tournament in Japan and South Korea the previous year — is striking.
Gianluigi Buffon, Italy's first-choice goalkeeper in the latter event, was among many critics, saying the Fevernova, which was supposed to be 10 per cent faster and 25 per cent more precise, was a 'crazy, bouncing ball'.
Since 2004, Adidas has thermally bonded its balls, rather than hand-stitching them. The Questra, which it made for the 1994 men's World Cup in the U.S., was hand-stitched and made from five different materials, coated in a polystyrene foam.
Ieuan Williams, who carried out the player and robot testing at Loughborough, explained the evolution.
'People started to go, 'Well, these don't have to be regular shapes any longer. We can do crazy things with panels',' he says. 'There's been a bit of a readjustment, and now we need to make sure that the ball flies properly again, which has made a load of investment in that.'
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The new Club World Cup ball has 20 thermally-bonded panels, the same structure as the Al Rihla from the men's World Cup two and a half years ago.
For all the panels' similarities to previous tournament balls, Adidas has moved away from the approach of making a newer iteration of a pre-existing model but with a specific Club World Cup colourway. Perhaps this is why the company is slightly vague in describing how this ball can improve the quality of matches.
Adidas markets it as more accurate and consistent in flight, which it says will 'support fast, precise play'.
Sixty-three matches over the next month should prove more than a robust enough sample to test those claims.