Bend it like Einstein: Science and the WC

paris — Football fans won’t be alone when they sit glued to their TV sets for the 2018 World Cup.

Scientists, too, will follow every move of the players and ball, probing all facets of the beautiful game for insights into disciplines as divergent as aerodynamics, psychology and the human physique.

With just about every World Cup, there seems to be grumbling about the ball, which Adidas has designed for the four-yearly FIFA tournament since 1970.

Already, this year’s offering, Telstar 18, has been criticised by some goalkeepers for being too flighty and hard to grip.

But scientists say the new sphere is actually quite stable — certainly more so than Jabulani, the much-denigrated official ball for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

The Telstar 18 is a nostalgic nod to Adidas’ first-ever World Cup ball, the Telstar, used in Mexico for the 1970 World Cup.

That was the first black-and white sphere made for a World Cup — designed for better visibility on monochrome TV screens — and sported the mix of pentagonal and hexagonal panels that has become synonymous with soccer balls.

The latest offering is white, black and grey, with gold lettering. Eric Goff, a physics professor at the University of Lynchburg in Virginia, was part of a team that analysed the ball using wind-tunnel experiments and surface measurements.

Compared to the Brazuca, its predecessor used in Brazil in 2014, the Telstar 18 experiences more “drag” or resistance as it flies through the air, the researchers found.

This means it will travel shorter distances — about eight to ten percent less than Brazuca — when kicked at high impact speeds of more than 90 kilometres (56 miles) per hour, Goff told AFP.

“That could be bad for strikers who kick from a great distance and must therefore kick the ball very hard,” he explained. But potentially good news for goalies, as it means balls kicked at high speed “will reach the goal a little slower than Brazuca did in 2014.”

Like Brazuca, Telstar 18 has six panels, compared to Jabulani’s eight — far fewer than the traditional 32-panel recipe — AFP