Bayer MaterialScience & adidas partner for FIFA World Cup ball
16 Mar '06
5 min read
Soccer player David Beckham
The keep the ball in shape, Bayer's coating specialists developed a new structure for the outer skin. To begin with, they increased the wall thickness of the ball to 1.1 millimeters to make it rounder and smoother.
The decisive component in ensuring an accurate trajectory of the "+Teamgeist" is the polyurethane-based syntactic foam, which is applied to an adhesive layer that bonds the outer skin to the textile substrate.
The foam consists of millions of gas-filled microspheres. "This ensures that the ball quickly returns to its original round shape after becoming deformed when kicked, and it is this that gives it an optimum trajectory," says Thomas Michaelis.
Top soccer player with his favorite toy: David Beckham, the English international who plays for Real Madrid, loves the precision of the new World Cup soccer ball. Finally, the ball's outer finish protects the printed surface from abrasion. It makes for greater durability and gives it a perfect appearance over a long period.
The "+Teamgeist" still gleams like new when the teams leave the pitch exhausted and filthy after a hard match. The material, which is also frequently used as a surface layer in the fashion industry, comes from Bayer MaterialScience's Impranil range. In addition to this, "+Teamgeist" (like two of its predecessors) is no longer stitched but bonded with a patented thermal adhesive coat.
"It's incredible how much development and material research has gone into it. I always thought you just pumped air into the ball and that was that," said Rudi Völler, a member of the World Cup winning team of 1990, former boss of the German national team and currently Sporting Director of Bayer 04 Leverkusen
Test the Best: German international Bernd Schneider tested the new World Cup ball by directing some powerful shots at the goal of Bayer 04's keeper, Jörg Butt.
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