Adidas Jabulani

The Jabulani is a football manufactured by Adidas. It was the official match ball for the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

The ball is made from eight spherically moulded panels and has a textured surface intended to improve aerodynamics. Nevertheless, the ball received extensive criticism from players and coaches before and during the World Cup who said that the path of the ball through the air was unpredictable. The ball was consequently developed into the Adidas Tango 12 series of footballs.

The ball was constructed consisting of eight (down from 14 in the 2006 World Cup) thermally bonded, three-dimensional panels. These then were spherically moulded from ethylene-vinyl acetate (EVA) and thermoplastic polyurethanes (TPU). The surface of the ball was textured with grooves, a technology developed by Adidas called "Grip 'n' Groove" that was intended to improve the ball's aerodynamics. The design had received considerable academic input, being developed in partnership with researchers from Loughborough University, United Kingdom.

The ball had four triangular design elements on a white background. The number 11 was prominent in the use of the ball, as 11 different colours were used; representing the 11 starting players in a football squad, the 11 official languages of South Africa, and the 11 South African communities.

The Jabulani Angola, used at the 2010 African Cup of Nations in Angola, was coloured to represent the yellow, red and black of the host nation's flag. An orange version is available for winter games and a yellow version for indoor games.

A gold colour version, called the Jo'bulani, was used for the 2010 FIFA World Cup Final. This name is a reference to "Jo'burg", a common nickname for Johannesburg, the match venue. The gold colouring of the ball mirrored the colour of the FIFA World Cup Trophy and also echoed another of Johannesburg's nicknames: "the City of Gold". The Jo'bulani ball was the second World Cup Final ball to be produced, the first time being the +Teamgeist Berlin for the 2006 FIFA World Cup.

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