Jabulani fifa world cup 2010 ball to be tested by California Institute of Technology
With the football World Cup heading towards the decisive knock out stage, sixteen teams will be heading home, while an equal number advance to the next stage, one object remains the talking point and that is the ball being used for the tournament given the name “Jabulani”.
The ball manufactured by one of the leading sporting goods manufacturers, Adidas, has been under the spotlight even before the start of the tournament with many leading players calling it the worst ball they have ever played with, some of them event went to the extreme of calling it “rotten”.
Complaints about the ball have become a feature of the first ever World Cup to be staged in Africa, and the poor ball has very few friends and has been under scathing criticism from players, coaches and fans alike.
Many of them feel that the ball is responsible for an apparent drought of goals in the opening round as crosses, free-kicks and long-range shots have been eluding players, and the goalpost.
Jabulani’s biggest enemies have been the goalkeepers. As many of them have conceded some limp goals, with the biggest howler committed by English goal-keeper when he let a seemingly harmless kick in his goal, in the opening match of the tournament against United States.
On the other hand the German manufacturer has rubbished the claims, they say that the ball is rounder than any other ball that has been used in major competitions worldwide and some of the international stars were finding it tough to cope with a ball that is of a real good standard, hence they indulged in criticism.
Adidas’s representative also claimed that criticizing the ball before every World Cup, was a ritual that the players regard as important as the opening ceremony.
The debate on the ball has now caught the imagination of some of the leading scientists in the United States, as aerospace engineers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) test the ball to figure out what the fuss is all about.
The engineers in one of the leading technology institutes in the world generally test vehicles and other electronic equipment in their laboratories and wind tunnels yet for a change their lab was focusing on “Jabulani”.
The scientists are carrying out various experiments to figure out the differences between a traditional football and the one being used in South Africa for the World Cup.
Assistant professor of aeronautics Beverly McKeon felt that while it was difficult to figure out which ball was better, the smoothness of “Jabulani” causes lesser degree of drag when a kick is taken.
The “Jabulani” was exposed to wind speeds in the region of 10 meters per second, while a smoke machine was used to track the movement of the ball, and figure out how much it swings.
The “Jabulani” is seamless and hence is far smoother than the traditional football, and McKeon feels that the usual football has deeper groves between the panels, which create a more turbulent airflow.
"The new ball is smoother therefore the change in the flow around it happens at a slightly different point in the trajectory, so that means that any changes or any swerve or any slight differences in the arc of the ball happen at a different point and may be stronger than they would have been with the previous ball," said McKeon. He added that the study was really interesting and many scientists were keen on taking a look at the ball, and figuring out the patterns of manufacturing.
Meanwhile Adidas thinks that the tests are unnecessary as their ball was approved by the Federation of International Football Association FIFA, and was also scientifically tested in a lab in the United Kingdom.
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