World Cup - Look at the ball again!

Since the first kick off of this world cup, my eyes never far off the ball or 'Jabulani' as they call it now. I have seen few world cup games so far and let alone some other tournaments like UEFA CUP, European Cup or English Premier League but I never seen this kind of ball magnetified the players.

It is a new-tech ball, designed by Adidas for this world cup tournament and I believe some of us might have heard the 'comments' made by some players, especially the goalkeeper of how different the ball be compared to other. The speed is so different-much faster and could kill the goalkeeper during 'goal saving' action. The accusation/comment was agreed by the maker as the ball was designed with very very minimum sewing and almost 1 piece combination. From this we could expect the ball would have very minimum friction travelling in the air thus the speed is very much faster than conventional ball. It also got adjacent connection inside to hold every angle of the ball to make it a precisely round shape. It is a good evidence to show that it is not easy to control this new ball on the field and let alone the feet.

During First Round matches, I could see so many players having the difficulties to control the ball-free kick, dribble the ball around opponents, stopping the ball in the air, heading the ball during ball crossing, corner kick etc. It happened to all the teams, except for 1 team - Germany where I have seen the players already mastered the ball so well.

I kept my eyes on Germany Players during other matches and I was so convinced as it looked like the ball or 'Jabulani' was designed for them. Believe it or not but 'adidas' is their brand. However, it could be seen also that the pro players were making a quick adjustment to the ball and we could see alot of improvement during 2nd Round and up to Quarter Final Matches.

Having said that, I am also convince myself that the Champion of this World Cup is the team whom could handle this new 'Jabulani' better than others...not mention any team but you know what I mean......