New season, new ball. The three big football leagues—England’s Premier League, Spain’s La Liga, and Italy’s Serie A—begin in just a few weeks, and Nike has developed a fancy, new ball for them that’s loaded with all types of hi-tech goodness that may pique your interest. It’s called the T90 Ascente. Goalkeepers will hate it; flashy forwards will love it.
What’s so damn special about the ball? The Nike bullet points are: “360 Sweet Spot,” “Longer Range,” “Increased Visibility,” “Higher Accuracy,” and “Greater Speed.”
Breaking those down, the “360 Sweet Spot” refers to the way the ball reacts to being kicked. Usually, footballs have a “sweet spot,” like the “meat” of a baseball bat, that you’re trained to hit for maximum speeds, accuracy, etc. Apparently the T90 Ascente doesn’t have a “sweet spot,” per se, rather that the whole ball is a sweet spot. That is, wherever you kick it, the ball will react as if you’ve kicked the sweet spot. Good news for Quaresma. (Why do sports compilation videos on YouTube always have terrible music?)
Longer range? That’s pretty obvious, right? The ball is constructed in three layers, and this somehow makes the ball travel two ball lengths longer than previous Nike footballs.
Increased visibility. You’ll notice the patterns on the ball; it sort of looks like the scanner from Half-Life 2:
Anyhow, the patterns are such that they create a “flicker” as the ball spins. That’ll be helpful on those awful, gray winter days in Liverpool.
If you actually had the ball in your hands, you’d see that its surface is textured to a degree that’s probably a little different than the last ball you kicked. Nike calls it “micro-textured,” which basically lets air flow around the ball more smoothly, creating less resistance, etc. You know, like the dimples on a golf ball.
The T90 Ascenete is also faster than previous balls, traveling at about 22.19 m/s (72.17 feet/s). Something to do with the three-layer construction.
All this talk of multi-layer construction reminds me of the great Razor Blade Wars of the past decade. “Our razor has three blades.” “Well our razor has four blades.” “Ha! Our blade has five blades!.
And, uh, if you speak Spanish, watch this video. It explains the technological wonder of the ball.
Nike has its own video, in English, that I can’t embed. (Though, if I were feeling crazy, I could probably just swipe the Flash file then upload to our CG YouTube account. No thanks.) It’s here if you’re interested.
About 15 minutes ago I wrote “Goalkeepers will hate it; flashy forwards will love it.” But now I see FC Barcelona’s goalkeeper Víctor Valdés praising the ball in that Spanish video. Figures.
victor valdes should get ready to see a lot of those new nike balls fly past by him after they play madrid.
get ready for more ronaldo screw ups?
blame it on the ball.
Aw, no more fun watching players fiddling with the ball to find the sweet spot before they take a free kick.
But I’ll bet they still do it out of both habit and theatrics — an essential part of soccer! ;)
just reintroduce the old classic balls, they move like balls should move. last year’s ball moves like shit, players like Gerrard and Ronaldo love them, made the goalkeepers look like idiots.
the backdrop says the ball is designed for goalscorers and “pesadilla para porteros” – nightmare for keepers. Valdez does not sound too convinced. His two points are that the design is easy to see and the dimples (like a golf ball) will make it easy to grab.
That means more goals to be scored.
Lol i thought i was going to see a football then a soccer ball shows up >.<
coooll!
That’s really amazing. What’s the price tag on that puppy going to be?
Ok, All You Americans,Stop Trying To act like Youse Know ANYTHING about football. I never post on these, and never will again, but ive had enough of you wankers calling Football SOCCER !! All americans are shit at it anyway. And stop actin as though use know anything bout the premier league, you dont. And youse can reply to this messsage with ALL your anger cause ill never be on this site again! That felt good [;
ur just a frickin gay loser.
tell you what, anon. i challenge you and any of your friends to a match against me and a few of mine. when we are done wiping the pitch with your entitled, talentless (but haven’t won a major tournament in how long?), piss-warm beer drinking asses we will show you to a good time in the warm california sun.
idiot.
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