The Hidden Star of UEFA’s Euro 2008

Beckham, Zidane, Kahn and Xavi are just a few names that come to mind when you think ‘soccer star.’  Last night during the final Euro 2008 match (Germany 0 – 1 Spain) soccer’s newest star was in play. 

I’ll give you a few hints:  compact, accurate, high-performing, stylish. 

Oh yes, and with German origins . . .

Still stumped?  For those of you obsessed with soccer, you have already heard about this star in the news.  A bit controversial and especially got under the skin of Germany’s Jens Lehmann and the Czech Republic’s Petr Čech. 

Uh huh, we’re talking about the ball!  Europass Gloria.

Created by adidas and supposedly designed by German soccer icon Oliver Kahn, the Europass Gloria, a stylized makeover of the Europass, was used as the official ball in last night’s final competition (the Europass was the official ball for all the other Euro 2008 matches). Several sources I found on the Web claim the silver wonder to be the most accurate soccerball ever.  Ironic that SoccerBlog.com, the self-acclaimed “world’s leading soccer blog,” published a negative slant on the ball, while giving it the densest technical description/promotion, I found:

“The new ‘Europass’ match ball of Bayer material is supposed to combine outstanding flight characteristics with greater power transmission and control.  The ball has 14 panels in the shapes of tongues and propellers and only 24 junction points when assembled.  There is a change in the exterior structure - called PSC-Texture. Nubs resembling goose bumps on the surface layer give the ball more power and swerve. The larger surface of attack and contact surface allow the players to control the ball more precisely in all types of weather. ‘PSC’ stands for Power-Swerve-Control, which means optimized power transmission, more spin and greater precision - which makes it sound like something that should be part of a new car engine.”

To hear what the goalies say about it, go to the original post here. 

Cha-ching!
The soccer ball is a hidden star of the discipline, but also of business.  With annual sales estimated at $40 million in 2001, the soccer ball market is in a competitive league of its own.  Aiming to drive technological advancements that result in stars like Europass Gloria, industry leaders (i.e. adidas) have strategic partnerships with sports technology research labs to stay ahead.   

A key part of the research being conducted at these labs is (FEA) finite element analysis, a subject I’ve covered before when blogging about adidas’ ForMotion running shoe technology.  The labs develop FEA models of soccer balls in order to better understand their behavior, test their performance, and know which design adjustments to make in order to reach ‘perfection.’ 

Fig.1. A research photograph of a soccer ball (left) and an Abaqus FEA image (right), from Loughborough University Sports Technology Group, demonstrate how realistic simulation can accurately model the different stresses on the fabric panels of the ball when it is bounced against a surface.

You just can’t roll out Europass Glorias without the FEA step.

Fig. 2. Sports equipment makers are increasingly using computer-aided engineering software—such as Dassault Systèmes’ Abaqus Unified Finite Element Analysis (FEA) product suite from SIMULIA—to speed development and enhance the quality of products such as artificial turf, shoes and soccer balls.

What characteristics do you think the next generation soccer ball will have?

–Kate

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