Let’s get the facts straight.
Here is the list of participants: Australia, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Algeria, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria, well, South Africa, Honduras (Honduras?!), Mexico, USA, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay, New Zealand, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, and Switzerland.
Surely, the design of the official ball is met with goal keeper skepticism (see similar post from 2008). This time it’s different. Engineers at Adidas came up with an entirely new shape. Zakumi is no longer made of plastic, but it is coated with a yellow fur-like material. Out of the main body protrude four paws, a long tai and what looks like a green wig. Measuring almost 1m90cm in width it is also considerably grown in size compared to e.g. the Europass from 2008 . Even strikers seem to struggle. “It’s very weird,” Luis Fabiano of Brazil said. “All of a sudden it changes trajectory on you. It’s like it doesn’t want to be kicked.”
Two more days and we will see what the fuzz is all about.
