The following information in this article is the result of many hours of professional research and I hope it will help you.
Although normally called soccer, another less popular name for the sport is football, a concept that renders the full specificity of the game. Before the modern invention of the official soccer ball, the early history of the game mentions all sorts of improvised balls made of human heads, skulls, bladders and wrapped up cloths. In the Middle Ages, inflated animal bladders were the most frequently used balls, and gradually they started being covered in leather. Charles Goodyear patented vulcanized rubber in 1836 and became the father of the first official soccer ball in 1855. Then, inflatable bladders started being produced in 1862, after H.J. Lindon invented them.
There are significant features to consider if we are to consider the official soccer ball chronologically. Periodically, the producer of the official ball changes, although the basic quality standards remain the same. Another aspect regarding the official soccer balls used in time is that of the manufacturing companies that have been entrusted to produce these items. Thus we ought to refer to Puma, Brine, Nike or Adidas that design soccer balls following the regulations and laws established by the international football organisms and associations (FIFA).
One official soccer ball was the Telstar (Star of Television) used in Mexico in 1970. Although they had started producing soccer balls just some seven years before, Adidas was accredited to design the official soccer ball for the FIFA World Cup of 1970. It was for the first time that the black and white 32 panel pattern was used to allow for a better visibility on black and white TV sets. Two Adidas soccer balls were afterwards launched in Germany, in 1974. Telstar was reissued but this time the gold branding was replaced by a black one. Then Adidas produced the official soccer ball in an all-black version which was named Adidas Chile, after an all-white ball previously tested in Chile in 1962. The materials and techniques from these first models were afterwards preserved in the 1970 releases.
To count some more of the balls that have won the official soccer ball status there are: Tango Durlast 1978 with lots of elegance, passion and dynamism, Tango Espana, 1982 designed in natural leather, Azteca, Mexico 1986, the first polyurethane rain resistant coated ball, Etrvsco Unico, Italy, or in 1990 the first ball based on an internal polyurethane foam layer.
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