The Ball 2006

Fabinhno on Copacabana playing keep-up (courtesy Brazil Uncovered) I came across Brazil Uncovered, a fantastic little blog by Doug Banks and Dan Osborne, a couple of days ago, and I’ve been enchanted reading the stories of their adventures ever since. This is how they describe their motivation for the trip: We’re making a pilgrimage to [...]

The head of the German football federation warned that stationing tanks around the stadiums at this year’s World Cup finals would destroy the friendly atmosphere the organisers want to create. No kidding, Sherlock! Quoted from a Yahoo Sports News article.

It seems that FIFA are slowly cottoning on to our idea of an equivalent to the Olympic Torch for football. Two years ago, instead of being carried by athletes to the Olympic Games in Greece from, er, Greece, the torch made a tour of all the countries that had hosted the games. Well, this year, the World Cup trophy is being taken from country to country before it goes to Germany. It’s not just visiting the countries which have hosted the tournament, but the idea seems to be along the same lines…

For the first time in history, the inimitable FIFA World Cup Trophy will travel the globe in a whirlwind tour ahead of next summer’s festival of football. Neither the current trophy, designed and recently renovated by Italian sculptor and creator Silvio Gazzaniga, nor its predecessor the Jules Rimet Cup has ever before embarked on such an amazing journey.

Apparently there’s a 3D film that has been made to accompany the tour:

[The film,] exploring the almost mythical birth of the Trophy itself, will wow the audience with its tremendous effects and distilled football fever. From the heavens and molten beginnings, the Trophy emerges among the stars and is given a fictional ‘birth’ befitting its vaunted status in the real world.

Quotes come from the article The FIFA World Cup comes to the world on the FIFA website. No news on when it will reach London — but wouldn’t it be great if it coincided with the game in Battersea Park when The Ball begins its journey? The trophy will be in London on 23 March 2006, although no venue has been announced. The entire schedule can be found here

Use your loaf! I always knew there was bread in football, but now there seems to be football in bread as well. Spotted this weekend in Hamburg.

Seems like the project that Sven Goran Eriksson and Nancy Dell’Olio founded in 2002 has finally got itself a website. On it, they say:

“No matter where you go in the world, the language of football speaks for itself, transcending class, age, religious and gender barriers. High in the mountains on distant desert plains, on paradise beaches or arctic wastes — if you don’t speak the language you can always talk football.”

Sounds familiar…

Check it out at www.truce.net

According to the Independent, in an article titled Olympic Flame Hijacked by Anti-Capitalist Protesters:

“Eleanora Berlanda, the Italian 1,500 metres champion runner, was pounding the streets of the northern city of Trent bearing the torch when eight protesters, their faces hidden by scarves, burst through barriers along her route and grabbed at it.”

Click here to read the full article on the Common Dreams website

Hmm, I wonder what adventures await us…

The ball that we kick to the Opening Ceremony of the World Cup is always the official World Cup ball for that tournament. If we’d had the idea in 1974, these are the balls we’d have been kicking:

1974: TELSTAR

According to FIFA, this was the first ball with 32 black and white panels to make it more visible on black and white television screens.

1978: TANGO

Supposedly a more design representing “elegance, dynamism and passion”!

1982: TANGO

This ball’s innovation was its waterproof design.

1986: AZTECA

The first synthetic match ball

1990: ETRUSCO

The first ball with an internal layer of foam

1994: QUESTRA

Designed to fly faster through the air

1998: TRICOLORE

The first multi-coloured ball

2002: FEVERNOVA

Radical restyling

2006: TEAMGEIST

Apparently this is the most accurate ball to date — the seams on the official ball (not the replica pictured here) are flush to the surface and should cause less air turbulence as it flys

Here’s another report, this time from the Thüringer Allgemeine (UPDATE: you can find the original German article here): Globetrotter with football The most attractive spin-off from next year’s world championship has got better still. Christian Wach, from England, proclaims the spirit of football and in Erfurt he met plenty of soulmates. Instead of a diplomatic [...]

Here’s a copy of some coverage that we (both Spirits of Football) were given recently in the Thüringer Landes Zeitung. Many thanks to John Taylor for a translation of the article. (UPDATE: you can find the original German article here) “The Ball” on the Petersberg At the Olympics it’s the blazing torch that’s carried across [...]

Okay, so The Ball — or The Spirit of Football to give it its full title here on this site — has been unveiled. This is a replica of the mind-bogglingly expensive official ball, but anyway this is what it looks like, folks. Its name is Teamgeist, which translates as Team Spirit and makes me wonder if someone at adidas is coming round to our way of thinking… they’ve got the word “spirit” in it after all. Only another three words to get in there and it’ll have converged completely. Can’t wait to start kicking it!