TechnoMeter

A Brief History of Every Official World Cup Ball Since 1930

Every year, the World Cup is played with a new ball. That makes it unique—after all, few other sports reinvent the wheel every four years. But this element of uncertainty is also exciting, and it means that soccer ball technology has come a long, long way since the 1930s—when World Cup balls were still inflated through tie-up laces.

After The New York Times published an awesome interactive on the history of soccer ball design this weekend, we decided to take a look at each ball in succession—drawing from World Cup Balls, an incredible encyclopedic website that the NYT sourced from. There, Peter Pesti collects and describes how ball technology has evolved over the generations.

The difference between the leather bladders of the 1930s and the high-performance materials of today are pretty stunning.

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