As a designer and football fan I love the World Cup, the branding for every event, the social media content every team and every broadcaster creates always improves every four years but there is one thing I look forward to the most (just in front of the latest sticker book) and that is the World Cup ball.
Since the early seventies Adidas has been the official World Cup ball and has come a long way since the early black and white panel ball, every four years a new design is launched and an element of technology and science is added to the ball (we won't mention the 2002 World Cup ball and all that movement)
I fell in love with the World Cup in 1994 at the age of 9 and the Questra ball used was the first ball I really wanted, after the famous Baggio penalty miss we practised our own penalties over the local football fields in the summer holidays... before recreating that Baggio moment and losing the ball in a river!
This years ball compared to previous is rather quiet in appearance but has been developed to be as stable as possible in flight, surely a hit with goalkeepers. Even more technology again is a small microchip in the retail balls that can link to your smartphone? Maybe good for when you do lose it in the river and need to track it who knows?
