Adidas uses thermal-bonding, not stitching, to create perfectly round ball for 2010 FIFA World Cup

The official match ball for the upcoming FIFA world cup, the Adidas Jabulani, features a newly developed “Grip’n'Groove” surface for enhanced grip in all conditions and an exceptionally stable flight path. Thanks to a new spherical-molding process for the eight thermally-bonded panels, the ball is perfectly round and thus more accurate for passes and shots on goal.

Adidas has been manufacturing close to 1,800 of these a day since April 2009. What still remains to be seen, however, is whether a perfectly round ball is actually better for the game than hand-stitched ones, whose idiosyncrasies were said to keep goalkeepers second-guessing the ball’s flight path.