The World Cup’s new ball is the most technologically advanced ever, Fifa tells us. It has a 500Hz motion sensor chip, which lets VAR and analysts figure out precise positioning, speed and even the spin on the ball, for some weird reason. But former England goalkeeper Joe Hart says the Trionda ball is making life harder for goalkeepers trying to save shots. ‘It’s that kind of shoulder height,’ he continued:
As soon as [players] are not using the curling technique, as soon as that ball is not spinning, the goalkeepers are struggling.
Hart obviously has lots of experience in the area and was particularly known for his ability to deal with shots around the head and shoulders, but is he right?
The new Trionda has just four panels but has a very rough surface to counteract this effect
If you average out the saves per game, the current crop of goalkeepers have made more saves than in the previous two tournaments: six per game compared with 5.1 in each one previously. The number of goals has increased slightly, from 2.6 and 2.7 per game to three in this tournament. So it is a small change, but nothing noticeable.
