Meet the 2006 World Cup Official Ball !
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– June 9 to July 9, 2006 –
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Were the start of a World Cup solely dependent on the availability of its official ball, the tournament could get started today! For the ball for the coming World Cup has not only been manufactured and officially presented to the public (at the Leipzig Draw of the World Cup Groups), but it has also been tried by a number of renowned athletes!
Among those who have tried the new ball are both the Real Madrid and the AC Milan stars, amid whom Zidane, Beckham, and Kaká are reported to have been very well impressed at the easy handling of the new ball ("footing" would have possibly been more accurate a term, were it available). Anyway, these soccer stars have reportedly stated that the ball's handling is excellent: quite friendly, smooth and precise. So, in principle, this new ball should help enhance the great technique that the current Masters of Football delight us, fans, with.
The ball's superior performance is attributed to its being perfectly spherical and to its smooth surface, both ensuing from what is claimed to be a revolutionary technology in soccer ball manufacturing. Behind this technology is Adidas, the official FIFA World Cup™ball manufacturer.
(This new ball, it should be briefly observed, does not contain that "intelligent chip" which has recently been tried out in the FIFA's under-17 international tournament. Apparently, the futuristic technology involved in the "intelligent ball" lies yet a bit too far into the future, to be indeed suitable for FIFA's professional World tournament.)
But the 2006 World Cup official ball emerges as a lot more than a mere ball. It should perhaps be referred to as a Ball, or the Ball..
To start with, there cannot ever be (so it seems) any man-made thing more spherical than the new World Cup ball, since it is claimed to be "perfectly spherical" – that is, the utmost in sphericity!... Moreover, it even has a name: Teamgeist™! More than that: a surname, too! (The "™" immediately following the name can't be missed; a surname of pedigree, signaling such a well-known and wealthy lineage, World-wide.)
Now, considering, for a moment, Levi-Strauss's
reference to a primitive notion according to which, to name an object is equivalent to gaining power over it, the new World Cup Ball might be said to have been born with flying colors. For, after all, it not only has been given a name, but also a trade-mark, right from its birth! No wonder, the announced revolutionary technology has reportedly manufactured the most 'obedient' Ball of all, to date!
Just imagine Ronaldinho (again acclaimed and honored as best player by the most reputed soccer institutions and organizations, in 2005, and now more popular in Japan than Beckham, himself) learning the Ball's name, learning to pronounce it with perfect German accent by June-2006 (of course not forgetting to include also the Ball's "™" surname), and gently commanding the Ball, with unshakable determination and goal-passion, while shining his irresistible smile upon Ms. Teamgeist™, right before he is to take a free kick, in the coming World Cup!... It appears that we are to expect yet more "magic" than we have already all watched, in awe and wonder, as for example, when Ronaldinho scored that incredible free kick against England, in 2002!
However difficult it might be to envisage still more "magic" than these sorts of shots carry past the goalkeepers, who possibly never live sufficiently to understand fully how the ball did manage in...Ms. Teamgeist™ is said to be perfectly spherical. So, goalkeepers get ready! Ms. Teamgeist™ is on her way!
Perhaps Ms. Teamgeist™ will enable goals to be scored yet sooner than 10.8 seconds after the whistle, thus smashing Turkey's Hakan Sukur's World Cup record (2002)! Sukur's "supersonic" goal was scored in the 3rd.Place Match, Korea Republic 2 x 3 Turkey, by the way.
The goalkeepers, on the other hand, are expected to fear Ms. Teamgeist™... So it has been reported.
Could then she, in her acclaimed spheric perfection and smoothness, turn around the current tendency (since 1990, in Italy) that the goalkeeper of the winning Squad holds a clean sheet in the Final Match?... (In 1994, in the United States, in fact, both goalkeepers playing the Final Match left the field with a clean sheet – Brazil's Taffarel and Italy's Gianluca Pagliuca – obviously not counting the penalty kicks that finally decided that Cup in Brazil's favor).
But before 1990, the tendency was the reverse: in the first thirteen Final World Cup Matches (1930-1986), no goalkeeper held a clean sheet. Perhaps the Ball, that is, Ms. Teamgeist™, can bring back the old tendency of many goals in the Final Matches, and we can now enjoy Final Matches that may even surpass the excitement of Brazil 5 x 2 Sweden (1958), the highest scoring Final Match to date – seven goals! (Pelé, at age only seventeen, scored the last goal of that Cup, at the last minute of the match, whereas Sweden's Liedholm, the first, at two minutes of the first half!)
Well, the Ball manufacturers reportedly claim that, just by itself, a Ball that moves in an identical way at every identical shot, is an assurance of many goals and much excitement for the coming World Cup. May the "Gods of Football" agree, and reinforce the manufacturers' forecasting, by delivering to us, fans, in actuality, a magnificent tournament, impregnated with fair-play, soccer-passion, virtuosity, and some of the most remarkable passes, footwork, and goals, ever! Could we, fans, ask for more?!...
The name Teamgeist™, by itself, breathes out a symbolic good omen, in total harmony with the spheric perfection, precision and control that it (the name) has been attached to: "team spirit" is its meaning, in German.
It should finally be remarked that Ms. Teamgeist™ is not solely revolutionary and new. Actually, she embodies yet another noteworthy feat: that of harmoniously bridging past and future, as Kaká has reportedly remarked, amid a repertoire of compliments on the Ball's qualities, likewise credited to the AC Milan's Brazilian star's name.
For if fashioned within the realm of a technology heralded as futuristic, Ms. Teamgeist™ has inherited the classical looks of glorious past soccer days: she dresses in discreet black and white (evoking the traditional German colors, as exhibited in their National Squad's uniform), her sole slip into opulence being that she is jeweled in gold stripes, which are held to symbolize the gleam of the FIFA World Cup Trophy, coveted by all who enter the final tournament, every four years,
Undoubtedly, the reports suggest that Ms. Teamgeist™ is set to be one of the top stars in the show to kick off on June 9, 2006, at the 'kaleidoscopic' (or 'kamaleonic'?...) brand new, translucent Allianz Arena, in München (Munich).
check, as well, the page Noteworthy for complementary data & references 
Levi-Strauss, above – it may be prudent to remark – is of course the renowned French structural anthropologist – by no means the jeans, even if the above context coincidentally includes trade-marks and "flying colors."
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