The balls that could change football
In 1930, Argentina and Uruguay went to the final of the first football World Cup in history, each with their own ball, and it took some time before they agreed to play a half time and the other half time. The first half, played with the Argentine ball, ended with Argentina leading 2-1. In the second half, played with the Uruguayan ball instead, Uruguay overturned the result and ended up winning 4-2.
Over time, many things have changed. Indeed, for more than fifty years, for each new edition of the World Cup, Adidas has created a new ball, presented from time to time as the best by those who manufacture it and almost always decried by someone who owes it utilize. It happened in 1970 with the Telstar, designed above all to be clearly visible even in black and white, in 1978 with the famous Tango, in 1990 with the Etrusco Unico and more recently with the various Jabulani, Brazuca and Telstar 18, World Cup balls in South Africa, Brazil and Russia.
The Qatar World Cup ball, also made by Adidas, is called Al Rihla, which in Arabic means “the journey”. As always, there were criticisms and celebrations, but also independent technical analyzes presenting them as fast and reliable otherwise quite similar to the previous ones . What is new, however, is that Al Rihla has been most talked about for the technology it contains and how it will change the game of football over time.
Al Rihla has an external polyurethane surface, with 20 heat-sealed panels so that there are no particular seams or friction. Its highlight, however, is inside, where there are two sensors – powered by a battery that can be recharged induction – which keep track of the position of the ball in real time, and therefore also where, how much, how and how fast it is moving on the pitch.
The sensors were designed and manufactured by KINEXON, a German company that specializes in what is known as the “Internet of Things” and, as far as sports are concerned, in tracking technological performance. They work simultaneously and weigh a total of 14 grams.
The first is a UWB (i.e. ultra-wideband) sensor which is used to provide the position of the ball in real time, and with much greater precision than a bluetooth or GPS sensor. The other is more of an IMU sensor, an acronym for “inertial measurement unit”.
Maximillian Schmidt, co-founder and CEO of KINEXON, has explained hence the function of each: “The ultra-wide band is used to give the position of an object, the inertial unit rather gives the granular movement in three dimensions”. It was thanks to this second sensor that it was possible to establish that Cristiano Ronaldo He didn’t even touch the ball from the first goal of Portugal-Uruguay.
To communicate its positions, the ball sends special signals in real time to an LPS, a local positioning system, which in turn works through a system of antennas installed around the football pitch. At each moment of the match, the sensors therefore make it possible to know where the ball is. In this case, since the system detects 500 positions per second, an instant is equal to one five hundredth of a second.
While KINEXON took care of the technology, Adidas studied a system allowing the sensors to always remain stationary in the exact center of the ball, because if they moved, perhaps after a hard kick, they would affect the trajectory of the shot. and would also affect providing inaccurate information.
At the World Cup, the technology inside Al Rihla footballs often integrates with the information provided by the system of cameras scattered around the pitch which, rather than being used for television purposes, are intended to track – with a level of detail equal to a fiftieth of a second – of every movement of the ball and the players. It was the cameras that made it possible to establish that the now quite famous Japan-Spain ball had not left the field, and it is also the system that allows the very precise offside to be applied, according to some offsides. game too precise, semi-automatic.
The infinitesimal offsides, a ball on the field of a few millimeters or a goal more or less awarded to Cristian Ronaldo, that’s already something. And the augmented reality experience through the official FIFA app is pretty futuristic too. may already have who attends a live match of these world cups. However, technological monitoring can open up possibilities much bigger and much more impactful for the future of football.
The first step for this to happen is that tech balls are also spreading in continental and national competitions, and at the same time sensors or chips inside players’ shoes or shirts (as is already produced) are spreading. In this way, a large amount of information would be obtained about each action of each game of a certain level.
On the one hand, it would make it possible to offer increasingly advanced and graphically integrated statistics with real-time match images: in other words, the technology would change the history of football, not just on television.
On the other hand, technology would allow teams to perform more accurate analyzes of what is happening during their matches. At best, a correct reading of all the new data available could make it possible to better understand, in a more analytical way, certain dynamics, and perhaps open up to new tactical developments that are currently unpredictable: in other words, technology would change gives it. soccer.
However, he already does it a little: now that offside has become an almost objective and semi-automatic fact, it can for example become a little less risky for the defender to play with a very high defense, with the goal of to induce opposing offside attackers into the awareness that letting us finish even with a nail would be enough for the technology to notice. This happened, for example, in the game Saudi Arabia surprisingly won against Argentina, who had three goals disallowed for offside in the first half.
Everything would be amplified even more if tracking were added to the possibility – for the moment not just around the corner, but in any case far from impossible – of seeing a match from the point of view of the referee, players or even the ball, perhaps through special viewers or with the ability to digitally replay certain actions or entire games, each time from different angles.
At the start of FIFA 2022 churches more than ninety technical directors from all over the world to answer a questionnaire on their way of imagining football in 2026, the year of the next World Cup. More than 80% of them said they were convinced, for example, that by 2026 technological game improvement tools will be a “central cost factor” for football clubs. It also emerged that respondents believed it was very likely and trendingly desirable for technology and data analytics to have an impact on players’ style of play. Instead, there were very different positions on whether football was or should be considered an art or a science.
Source: ilpost
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