Adidas Jabulani, the official match ball of World Cup 2010 has been coming under intense scrutiny from all over the footballing universe. From goalkeepers to strikers, from pundits to ordinary armchair fans, basically everyone has had their own say on how the Jabulani ball, besides the vuvuzelas, is ruining the World Cup 2010 experience. Curiously, during the recent African Nations Cup 2010 in Angola, in which the same Jabulani ball was used (albeit in the colors of the Angolan flag), no one complained about the ball. But now, so many are complaining. In any case, I think this is time for me to personally give my 2 cents' worth about this intriguing and quite cool looking match ball. Personally, I have with me one of those much criticized Jabulani ball with me and thus I am able to do a few little experiments with that ball and thus I am able to augment my arguments and general say about the ball.
Firstly, if we have been following the World Cup 2010 matches so far, we would have noticed that the Jabulani ball resembles a rugby ball in terms of its flight. We have seen how direct free-kicks and long range shots have all ended way above the crossbar. The various long range attempts on goal keep on making us reminiscing about rugby ball, only that it is round shaped. This is so different from the Teamgeist match ball used back in World Cup 2006 in which there were so many spectacular long range shots and free kicks able to be scored. (Even that ball was criticized, so it shows that it is not easy at all to please anyone, let alone everyone in the footballing world). Personally, I have yet to test my own Jabulani out on an open field for a kickabout as it would be detrimental to the ball's general conditions. But the World Cup matches are more than substantiating that rugby ball resemblance fact.
Secondly, we have also seen that goalkeepers in the competition are not able to cleanly catch and smother the ball. It seems that the Jabulani's spin is so persistent that even when goalkeepers have managed to catch the ball with their arms, the ball is still spinning in their hands and flies out of their hands and in certain cases (England's Robert Green and Algeria's goalkeeper against Slovenia) resulting in goals being scored. While the rest of the goalkeepers who fumbled the ball due to this as well as whole countries suffer a huge scare each time. As for my own experiment, I have tried spinning the ball and then catching it mid-air, it did show a persistence in spinning, but as far as my little experiment goes, it was not that significant, but in the actual match, it perhaps is, when taking into account grogginess and things like that in the actual match.
Thirdly, the Jabulani ball really knows how to bounce around! When the ball drops from the air, it bounces really high and if left on its own device, it would bounce so many times and it would bounce high as well when headed away by defending players. This would undoubtedly cause the vertical flight of the Jabulani ball to be unpredictable as well, but nevertheless, defending against long balls becomes easier as the ball goes much further when headed away by defending players. Just like how the Japanese players thwarted the Cameroonian useless long balls easily to send the ball deep into the Cameroon half each time in their historic 1-0 victory last night from the time of writing. I have experimented with this by dropping Jabulani alongside another match ball from the same height, and Jabulani really bounces much higher and for so many times. When the other ball has settled on the ground, Jabulani was still bouncing 4-5 times more before settling itself.
Lastly, since long range goals always go way over the bar (except for Cameroon's Stephane Mbia against Japan who managed to hit the goalpost), the only kind of long range goals would be the kind of tame and meek shots just like how Robert Koren scored against Algeria in Slovenia's 1-0 victory.
All of these show that Jabulani has indeed been playing a huge role in the World Cup 2010 so far and thus has been in the center of controversies surrounding the competition. Many would argue that the players have had so many training sessions with the ball by now, as well as the few friendly matches with the ball prior to the competition proper. They would also point out to Germany's massive 4-0 victory against Australia recently. However, we have to realize that the German players, who are mostly from the German Bundesliga have been used with Adidas balls since Bundesliga is the only top league in Europe using Adidas balls while the rest such as Italian Serie A, Spanish La Liga, and Barclays Premier League are all using Nike balls. Thus, after playing with other balls for so many full seasons, the Adidas balls might be hard to get used to.
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