My Opera+Teamgeist - We wouldn't have had a World Cup without this...
Wednesday, July 12, 2006 5:33:43 PM
The +Teamgeist ball is the official football for the FIFA World Cup 2006. The plus sign in its name was introduced in order to trademark the whole expression, which would not have been possible with the regular German language word teamgeist, meaning team spirit.
The ball is made by adidas, which has provided the balls used in all World Cup matches since the 1970 World Cup when the famous Telstar was introduced, which defined the look of a typical football ever since with its 12 black pentagons and 20 white hexagons in the form of a truncated icosahedron or bucky ball.
The Teamgeist ball differs from previous designs in having just 14 curved panels (making the ball topologically equivalent to a truncated octahedron), rather than the 32 that have been standard since the 1970. In another first, the panels are bonded together rather than stitched. It is claimed to be rounder and to perform more uniformly regardless of where it is hit, and being almost waterproof it also doesn't change performance as much when wet.
Its a fact: Each of the 32 qualified federations receives 40 match balls for training purposes.
The ball is made by adidas, which has provided the balls used in all World Cup matches since the 1970 World Cup when the famous Telstar was introduced, which defined the look of a typical football ever since with its 12 black pentagons and 20 white hexagons in the form of a truncated icosahedron or bucky ball.
The Teamgeist ball differs from previous designs in having just 14 curved panels (making the ball topologically equivalent to a truncated octahedron), rather than the 32 that have been standard since the 1970. In another first, the panels are bonded together rather than stitched. It is claimed to be rounder and to perform more uniformly regardless of where it is hit, and being almost waterproof it also doesn't change performance as much when wet.
Its a fact: Each of the 32 qualified federations receives 40 match balls for training purposes.
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