bola itu bulat. so what's the fuss?

jabulani, jabulani.... i was a bit blur when listening to hitz.fm this morning. they were talking about jabulani... jabulani

i quickly grabbed the star when i reached the office. a'ha!
Jabulani is FIFA's official ball. ada nama pulak itu bola. baru ku tahu.

extracted from thestar.com today:

THE World Cup is only five days old, and already it has been hit by controversy.

FIFA’s official Jabulani (it means “rejoice” in Zulu) ball has been roundly (forgive the pun) criticised by both players and team officials.

England’s Emile Heskey claimed the ball contributed to his bad miss against the USA on Saturday night, and said that goalkeeper Tim Howard was “lucky” to save his shot.

“The ball swerves and moves around,” was how the big striker described the Jabulani, which took four years of design and development in Loughborough University, UK.

The ball is constructed using a new design, consisting of eight (down from 14 in the last World Cup) thermally-bonded, three-dimensional panels. The surface of the ball is textured with grooves, a technology developed by Adidas called “GripnGroove” intended to improve the ball’s aerodynamics.

Then why is it that after years of development, and despite FIFA’s assurances that extensive tests were conducted, the Jabulani ball has attracted a storm of criticism?

Goalkeepers Julio Cesar, Iker Casillas and Gianluigi Buffon from Brazil, Spain and Italy respectively have complained about the ball.

Brazilian striker Robinho went so far as to condemn the designer, saying, “for sure the guy who designed this ball never played football.”

But the best quote has to be from US goalkeeper Marcus Hahnemann, “Technology is not everything; scientists came up with the atom bomb, doesn’t mean we should have invented it!”



bak kata pepatah, kalau tak pandai menari jangan pulak kata lantai itu tidak rata (sambil tangan diangkat gaya Karam Singh Walia)!

layan je...