This is how the World Cup soccer ball has evolved

The Uruguay World Cup 1930, the first official international soccer tournament, marked a before and after in the history of the sport. The first World Cup match debuted with a brown ball held together by external seams.

From small changes in its composition to the implementation of real time tracking technologymodernizations on the balls are part of the history of the World Cup.

These are the most emblematic and distinctive balls of the sports tournament.

Super Ball Duplo T: Brazil World Cup 1950

One of the first significant changes was the Super Ball Duplo T ball, used in the 1950 World Cup in Brazil, which introduced a molded rubber valve through which the closed internal bladder could be inflated with a simple hand pump, like all modern soccer balls

Telstar: World Cup in Mexico 1970

Twenty years later, at the 1970 World Cup in Mexico, the popular model that continues to represent football today would arrive on the field: Telstar, the Adidas ball with white hexagons and black pentagons.

Aztec: Mexico 1986

Although the following tournaments replicated the design of the Telstar ball, there were improvements in the lightness, resistance and impermeability of the balls, as well as in their materials. The Azteca ball, from Mexico 1986, revolutionized its time as it was the first to be made from synthetic materials.

Tricolore: World Cup in France 1998

The official ball of the 1998 World Cup in France also surprised sports fans when it moved away from black and adopted the French tricolor: red, blue and white colors to honor the host country.

Jabulani: World Cup in South Africa 2010

Since then, the design of the World Cup balls has been a key point in the elaboration of the models. The Jabulani ball for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa was launched with eleven colours, symbolically reflecting the eleven players of each team, of the eleven official languages ​​of South Africa and of the eleven South African communities.

Telstar 18: Russia World Cup 2018

It was not until 2018 that a ball implemented the technology in its composition. This innovation came with the Telstar 18 ball at the World Cup in Russia, a reinvention of the first model launched by Adidas. For the first time in a ball, it contained an NFC chip with which users could connect via smartphone.

How the ‘offside’ technology works in the Qatar 2022 World Cup

Al Rihla: Qatar 2022 World Cup

This year, at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, matches are played with balls that have a sensor that collects spatial positioning data in real time. With the Al Rihla ball, it is the first time that this technology is used in the sporting event, despite the fact that the last World Cup had a similar deployment.

The operation of this ball is part of a semi-automated technology that helps video refereeing teams and referees on the pitch make faster, more accurate and more reliable decisions in soccer competition.

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