Trivia Junction

A Compendium of trivia I find interesting
...for the curious

It's Round..., But unseemly!

If the American soccer team is still looking for excuses to explain its dubious showing in this year's World Cup (2006), here's another one: Blame it on the ball.

Instead of using conventional soccer balls made of 26 or 32 hexagonal sections, the World Cup has debuted a new ball, made by Adidas (2006 World Cup Teamgeist Finals Replique ), thats composed of just 14 panels. As a result, the ball has fewer seams and is aerodynamically smoother.

That sounds like a good thing, but an English physicist names Ken Bray at the University of Bath says a smother surface makes the new soccer ball more like an American Baseball. When it's kicked with a slow spin, it's less aerodynamically stable and more likely to fly erratically--just like a curveball or knuckleball.

With a very slow spin rate, which occasionally happens in soccer, the panel pattern can have a big influence on the trajectory of the ball and make it more unpredictable for a goalkeeper," Bray who predicts the World Cup tournament will feature more scoring than usual.

As if that's a bad thing.

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