Despite all of the buzz surrounding the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, scientists are keeping a very close eye on the ball.
As NPR reported, this year's ball, known as the Brazuca, has been the subject of intense and careful study, especially after the unpredictable performance of of its predecessor in the 2010 tournament in South Africa.
Though traditional soccer balls have 32 black and white panels, the rule book doesn't actually specify how many panels are on the ball or what shape the panels will be. So, in 2006, the maker of the World Cup balls, Adidas, started producing balls with fewer panels. The ball for the South Africa World Cup in 2006 just had eight.
While Adidas claimed the new ball was state-of-the-art and rounder, John Eric Goff, a physicist at Lynchburg College in Virginia, explained that it got off to a rough start.
"When the players would try to kick the ball straight...there would be an erratic knuckling effect that would take place."
This would infuriate goalkeepers, one calling it it a "supermarket" soccer ball. After more complaints started filing in, NASA's Ames Research Center in California got involved. After taking a look at the roundness of the 2010 ball, Ames found that the difference in the number of panels had changed the seams between the panels, and that in turn radically altered the ball's behavior.
Bring on the 2014 World Cup, and Adidas has changed the design of the ball again. Now, it appears that the new ball has longer, deeper seams that keep it from swerving.
Read NPR's full report on the World Cup soccer ball here.
