Once upon a metre , soccer orchis ( or football , depending on where you hail from ) wereinflated fuzz bladders wrapped in leather . One variation wasan ancient Taiwanese plot call “ tsu chu,”using a ball stuffed with feathers . In medieval England , players used leather - covered wine-colored feeding bottle fill with cork shaving ( to make them easily retrievable if they fell in the river ) . It was n’t until 1844 , whenCharles Goodyear patented vulcanized rubber , that association football balls started take shape . Literally .
In 1855 , Goodyear produce thefirst rubber association football egg . Then , seven years later , H.J. Lindon developed an inflatable rubber bladder to make the testis easier to kick and maintain its pseudo - spherical shape . White association football globe became the standard in 1951 ( company whitewash the leather , and in the sixties , begin to use man-made materialsto achieve uniform thickness and forestall the clod from becoming misshapen ) , and if squad played winter mates , prescribed orange soccer balls were manufactured for better visibility .
But the ball most unremarkably see today — the one with black and white Pentagon and hexagons — gained popularity in the 1960s . * antecedently , leather soccer orb dwell of 18 sections stitched together : six panels of three strip apiece . This pattern stitched together 20 hexagons with 12 pentagons for a total of 32 panels .
The ball made its World Cup debut as Adidas ’ Telstar in 1970 in Mexico . The ball ’s radiation pattern of white hexagon with black-market pentagon made it easily visible on television . An added bonus for players : The ignominious Pentagon helped them memorise to curve the bollock well by being capable to track its movement more well .
Adidas keep the ball ’s black - and - white colouring material scheme until 2002 , but the 32 - panel buckyball might not stay in vogue much longer — Adidas launched its new generationof association football balls for the 2006 and 2010 World Cups with the Teamgeist ( 14 jury ) and Jabulani ( 8 panel ) designs , respectively .
- fudge factor : The original variant of this post wrong tell that the egg was invented by architect and inventor Buckminster Fuller . That would have been amazing . We sheepishly regret the error . delineate up for a penalisation kick .
