It doesn’t take a genius to figure out the World Cup ball is terrible. But NASA decided to step in and analyze the stupid jublani anyway. Their conclusion…. the ball sucks.
Now maybe that isn’t verbatim what was said by the NASA scientists, but after studying the possessed prop for the last few weeks the organization has concluded that the ball is scientifically screwed up. NASA recently had several MLS players tryout the ball and boot it around for the sake of science. And the researchers believe that this knuckle effect occurs once the ball reaches an estimated speed of 44 miles per hour. In other words the speed of a fairly normal shot.
NASA also admitted that the ball is prone to even more bizarre movement due to the increased altitude at the venues in South Africa, but the committee did concur that this knuckle effect was a result of the strange style of stitching of the ball’s design and they also believe that any high speed shot should make the ball change direction often and awkwardly.
As I said before any schmo could tell you that the thing wiggles around in the air like that damn feather in the introduction of Forrest Gump. But now at least we have heard the mumbo-jumbo explanation from the nerds at NASA themselves.
Next Cup how about we let NASA decide what ball to use and perhaps allow the organization to design the newest model themselves? After all they did once design a little known instrument known today as the TV and they do seem to have a lot of free time on their hands.
