World Cup – The unfair advantage

June 26, 2010 - PRLog -- World Cup – The unfair advantage
by Raffaele DeGennaro

FIFA acknowledges problems with ball according to AP Sports Writer Andrew Dampf. He states that “FIFA acknowledges there might be something wrong with the Jabulani World Cup ball, but won’t act on any problems until after the tournament”.

“Brazil coach Dunga got into a verbal spat with Valcke over the Jabulani before the tournament, challenging the FIFA executive to come out onto the pitch and attempt controlling it.”

Denmark defender Daniel Agger said the ball made some outfielders look like “drunken sailors.”

“The balls have changed over the last couple of years. They have become a lot faster, and in addition to that in Johannesburg we are playing at an altitude of 1,700 meters, which makes the ball even faster,” former Germany goalkeeper Oliver Kahn said. “Thus, the goalkeepers work even harder, but I don’t think that we can take the ball or the altitude as excuses.

Adidas has made the World Cup ball since 1970 and is contracted through 2014. The German company has defended the Jabulani, saying it doesn’t know what the fuss is about because all the qualified teams were given the ball before the tournament to test it.

For me the problem is multifaceted, since an object at the equator travels 1,030 miles an hour, whereas another at Sarasota, Florida, moves at 930 miles per hour, and one at the North pole doesn't move at all. This apparent difference in speed results in the Coriolis force, an effect that imparts a twist to largish events happening away from the equator. Best known is its effect on air masses: as they move away from the equator, their speed (which matches that of where they started from) appears to be faster than that of the surface over which they are traveling.  Coriolis deflection sets cyclonic systems turning counterclockwise in the northern hemisphere and clockwise in the southern hemisphere. Likewise, a cannonball fired due north will seemingly veer a teeny bit to the east, and one fired to the south will apparently deflect ever so slightly to the west, deviations a skilled gunner would know to adjust for.

So experienced soccer players had to contend with the “Jabulani”, the geography, physics and inexperienced players who most definitely benefited because their lack of accuracy was not hindered. Visit http://winedineguide.com/w/?p=2551  for all detail and references on 2010 FIFA World Cup – its all about physics


Sources:
ANDREW DAMPF, AP Sports Writer
Michel, Roger and Beth Teitell.   "Toilet Flush Goes with Flow the World Over."
The Boston Herald.   28 April 1996   (Features; p. 78).
Lutgens, Frederick K. and Edward J. Tarbuck.   The Atmosphere: An Introduction to Meteorology   (Tenth Edition).
Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2006.   ISBN 0-13-187462-4   (p. 181).
Plait, Philip.   Bad Astronomy.
New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2002.   ISBN 0-471-40976-6   (pp. 21-27).
Ropeik, David.   "How and Why"
The Boston Globe.   22 November 1999   (p. C2).
Urban Legends Reference Pages © 1995-2010 by Barbara and David P. Mikkelson. http://www.snopes.com/science/coriolis.asp

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