Articoli di riviste sul tema "FC Köln (Soccer team)"

Abstract: Atlanta United FC is a soccer club in Major League Soccer (MLS) that set a league record for average home attendance—48,200 people—during its inaugural season that surpassed season records in the NBA, NHL, and MLB (Lamle, 2017; Panizo, 2017). How an organization communicates with its publics can influence people's attitudes toward it (Grunig, 1978). This research explores what Atlanta United FC did from the communication perspective of press releases to create an effective brand before the team played its first game. The study adopts Hazleton's (1992) taxonomy of public relations strategies along with Gladden and Funk's (2002) team association model (TAM) to examine what communication approach Atlanta United applied during the team's launch, specifically to consider what brand attributes were communicated to its publics. This qualitative analysis suggests how new sports organizations might communicate various brand attributes. Three emergent themes from Atlanta United's approach are suggested additions to the TAM from the successful communication process during a sports team's launch.

Proper body composition is an important role in sports performance that is not optimal can reduce the athlete's physical fitness so that the performance decrease when competition occur. Professional soccer players often work closely with a team of coaches, nutritionists and medical professionals who can help them plan the right nutrition and training strategies suitable for the Borneo FC team, the participants in Indonesia's highest league caste. The average body fat of 12.4% is in the very good category, the BMR with an average of 1636 kcal belongs to the normal category, the free fat mass index (FFMI) averages 61 in the good category and the total body water (TBW) with an average of 65% is included in the normal category. The body composition of Borneo FC soccer players can be stated that 67.8% body fat is in the very good category, 85.7% body metabolism rate (bmr) is normal, 42.8% free fat mass index is good and total body water is 100% normal. These results can be used as a reference in determining the nutrition and nutrition program for each player so that the condition of the body composition of the players can be maintained and balanced.

On October 6 2020 The Sun reported an event where Mohamed Salah, the celebrated soccer player of the Liverpool FC and the Egyptian national team, had protected David Craig, a 50-year-old homeless man, from people harassing him at a petrol station. According to Mr. Craig, Salah first scolded the attackers and then gave him £100. Craig later declared: “Mo is a real-life hero in my eyes and I want to thank him,” hence the article’s title: “Have-a-Mo Hero.”

Abstract: This research is motivated by phenomena in the field that lead to the results of the performance of football athletes being less than optimal due to the lack of measurement of physical conditions on the field. Physical condition as an important element in the success of a team playing a satisfying game needs to be an important concern for both the athlete and the coach. The purpose of this study was to measure the physical condition of Sinarmas FC female soccer players from five types of test tests including strength tests, flexibility tests, agility tests, 60 meters running speed tests and heart and lung endurance tests. The research method used is a test survey method with a quantitative approach. Data collection techniques were obtained by conducting tests on players with five types of tests, namely agility tests, flexibility tests, strength tests, 60 meters running speed tests and endurance tests. The results showed that the survey of the physical condition of Sinarmas FC women's soccer players seen from the 60meter running speed test was in the moderate category, the flexibility test of Sinarmas FC's women's soccer players was in the same two categories, namely very good and poor. In the strength test, it was categorized in the medium category and in the agility category, Sinarmas FC's female soccer players were in the less category. Heart and lung endurance tests, Sinarmas FC football players are in the poor category. Abstrak: Penelitian ini dilatarbelakangi oleh fenomena di lapangan yang mengarah pada hasil performa atlet sepakbola yang kurang maksimal karena kurangnya pengukuran kondisi fisik di lapangan. Kondisi fisik sebagai salah satu unsur penting kesuksesan sebuah tim melakukan permainan yang memuaskan perlu menjadi perhatian penting bagi atlet itu sendiri maupun pelatih. Tujuan penelitian ini untuk mengukur seberapa besar kondisi fisik pemain sepakbola putri Sinarmas FC dari lima jenis uji tes meliputi tes kekuatan, tes kelentukan, tes kelincahan, tes kecepatan lari 60meter dan tes daya tahan jantung dan paru-paru. Metode penelitian yang digunakan merupakan metode survei tes dengan pendekatan kuantitatif. Teknik pengumpulan data diperoleh dengan melakukan tes pada pemain dengan lima jenis uji berupa tes kelincahan, tes kelentukan, tes kekuatan, tes kecepatan lari 60meter dan tes daya tahan. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa survei kondisi fisik pemain sepakbola putri Sinarmas FC dilihat dari tes kecepatan lari 60meter berada pada kategori sedang, uji tes kelentukan pemain sepakbola putri Sinarmas FC berada pada dua kategori yang sama yakni baik sekali dan kurang. Pada uji tes kekuatan dikategorikan pada kategori sedang dan pada kategori kelincahan, pemain sepakbola putri Sinarmas FC berada pada kategori kurang. Tes daya tahan jantung dan paru-paru, pemain sepakbola Sinarmas FC berada pada kategori kurang.

Michael Lahoud is a professional soccer player who currently plays for Miami FC in the North American Soccer League (NASL). He was born in Sierra Leone, where he escaped civil war when he was 6 years old. As a refugee, soccer helped him integrate in the United States, where he was drafted as the ninth overall pick in the 2009 Major League Soccer (MLS) superdraft. He is a community advocate who uses his sport to support charitable efforts such as the Wall Las Memorias project, the NoH8 campaign, and Schools for Salone. He was the MLS Humanitarian of the Year in 2010, and, together with Kei Kamara, he is the recipient of the 2015 FIFPro World Players’ Union Merit Award (a prize worth $25,000), which recognized their involvement in the Schools for Salone project that builds schools in their home country of Sierra Leone. His brand is Soccer can make a difference. This interview consists of two parts, with the first part being conducted in December 2015 when he was a player with the MLS team Philadelphia Union and the second part being conducted in July 2016 after two transfers within 4 months. The interviews provide an overview of his approach to athlete branding via social media and its impact on his career.

Basic movements and dominant physical conditions are often still a problem for soccer players in supporting the strategies and tactics of a coach in building attacks or in defense, especially at Football Club Gemilang Raya Kuningan. Some players still have shortcomings in carrying out correct and accurate basic movements and do not yet know the physical procedural requirements that a professional soccer player must possess. Based on the problems faced, the STKIP Muhammadiyah Kuningan Service Team carried out activities to overcome the problems faced by partners. Community service activities aim to improve the abilities and skills of Football Club Gemilang Raya Kuningan athletes in performing basic movements and knowing the dominant physical condition. The activity was carried out at the Gemilang Raya Kuningan Football Club and was attended by 20 players. The method used is a coaching clinic which consists of 2 sessions. The material provided consists of understanding basic movements and dominant physical conditions, practice on basic movements and dominant physical conditions. The results of the activity to the community showed an increase in the abilities and skills of Football Club Gemilang Raya Kuningan players regarding basic movements and dominant physical conditions.

The objective of this research was to analyze the differences between expert and novice players regarding execution time (ET) and decision-making (DMA) in technical-tactical actions in football performed under laboratory conditions. Methodology: quantitative, comparative, analytical, and cross-sectional study. Four groups of players were simultaneously evaluated, divided into experts (two groups: Envigado FC, n = 16 and Leones FC, n = 12) and novices (two groups: Formantioquia, n = 14 and Unal, n = 13). Results: from a Student-t analysis, statistically significant differences were found between experts and novices in all variables. (DMA, ET, and Total Index: TI) (P < 0, 05); however, in the variable DMA, the effect size (0.37) and statistical power (0.26) show that the expert group has a higher level of performance compared to the novice group. Nevertheless, the opposite happens with the other variables, where the effect size and statistical power are 1.76 and 1.00 for ET and 1.1428571 and 0.99 for TI, which show that the expert group has a higher level of performance than the novice group. Likewise, using ANOVA (Analysis of variance) and Post hoc tests, there were no statistically significant differences between the two groups of experts and between the two groups of novices in any of the variables (DMA, ET, TI). However, Leones FC showed no difference in any of the variables with the two novice groups. Conclusion: there are differences in the level of performance between experts and novices in the TI and ET variables, but not in DMA if we take into account statistical significance, effect size, and statistical power. However, Leones FC showed no differences with the novices or with the expert Envigado FC, indicating that Leones FC can be assumed as an expert team similar to Envigado FC; however, its average values in ET and TI do not place it statistically above the two novices. Keywords: psychomotor performance, cognition, soccer, stroop test, elite.

The evolution of soccer over the past 30 years has brought about a faster pace of play and more demanding player dynamics that have led to a paradigm shift in how the game is analyzed. Classic, purely descriptive studies of midfielder performance paint a disjointed picture that is far from the reality of the complex network of relationships and interactions that mark modern-day soccer. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationships established by Xavier “Xavi” Hernández, captain of FC Barcelona and a member of the Spanish national team for many years, during his participation in the final stages of the 2012 UEFA European Football Championship. The authors studied Xavi’s relationship with other players on the pitch, the areas in which his interventions started and ended, his use of technical–tactical skills, and his involvement in set plays. A modified version of a purpose-designed observation instrument was used within an observational methodology study. The data were analyzed by polar coordinate analysis, which is a powerful data reduction technique that reveals significant prospective and retrospective relationships between a focal behavior (Xavi) and other behaviors of interest. The results show that Xavi presents a mutual activation with behaviors from J6 (Iniesta) and J21 (Silva) and significant relationships in attack set-up zones. He is also the most important player in set piece situations, when he uses technical behaviors of control and passing. Studies on tactical performance should analyze all inputs of play and focus on a deep, layered analysis of results to facilitate the work of soccer coaches and educators.

Objectives: The first objective was to investigate the influence of subjective perceptions and the efficacy of objective evaluation regarding the classification of soccer school players by their level of performance. The second objective was to advise on accurate collocation according to objective assessment of players’ performance. Methods: An objective evaluation of the players’ motor performance abilities and coaches’ subjective perceptions of the players’ levels of performance was conducted with 34 young football players (U11) from Torino FC soccer school. The players were allocated to three groups based on their perceived performance level at the start of the season. The players were evaluated using a field test battery, and team coaches provided subjective ratings of the players’ abilities. Results: MANOVA showed significant differences between the playing levels (F = 2.185, p < 0.05; partial η2 = 0.34) in the 10 × 5 shuttle run, 20 m sprint test (objective evaluations), heading, understanding of the game, positioning on the field, speed and agility (subjective perception) (F = 1.951, p < 0.05; partial η2 = 0.43). A discriminant analysis of the field test scores revealed that 76.5% of players were correctly categorised in one of the three performance-level groups. However, the first group (the best players) had the lowest predictive accuracy rate (58.3%). By comparison, the second group (the average players) had a much higher predictive accuracy rate (83.3%), and the third (the weakest players) had the highest (90.0%). Conclusions: These findings support the role of objective performance evaluation in categorising players of different skill in soccer schools.

Purpose: The authors investigated the association between risk of tendinopathies and genetic markers in professional team sports. Methods: The authors studied 363 (mean [SD]; 25 [6] y, 89% male) elite players (soccer, futsal, basketball, handball, and roller hockey) from a top-level European team (FC Barcelona, Spain). Of 363, 55% (cases) had experienced 1+ episodes of tendinopathy during 2008–2018 and 45% (controls) remained injury free. The authors first examined the association between single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and tendinopathy risk in a hypothesis-free case-control genome-wide association study (495,837 SNPs) with additional target analysis of 58 SNPs that are potential candidates to influence tendinopathy risk based on the literature. Thereafter, the authors augmented the SNP set by performing synthetic variant imputation (1,419,369 SNPs) and then used machine learning-based multivariate modeling (support vector machine and random forest) to build a reliable predictive model. Results: Suggestive association (P < 10−5) was found for rs11154027 (gap junction alpha 1), rs4362400 (vesicle amine transport 1-like), and rs10263021 (contactin-associated protein-like 2). Carriage of 1+ variant alleles for rs11154027 (odds ratio = 2.11; 95% confidence interval, 1.07–4.19, P = 1.01 × 10−6) or rs4362400 (odds ratio = 1.98; 95% confidence interval, 1.05–3.73, P = 9.6 × 10−6) was associated with a higher risk of tendinopathy, whereas an opposite effect was found for rs10263021 (odds ratio = 0.42; 95% confidence interval, 0.20–0.91], P = 4.5 × 10−6). In the modeling approach, one of the most robust SNPs was rs10477683 in the fibrillin 2 gene encoding fibrillin 2, a component of connective tissue microfibrils involved in elastic fiber assembly. Conclusions: The authors have identified previously undescribed genetic predictors of tendinopathy in elite team sports athletes, notably rs11154027, rs4362400, and rs10263021.

El objetivo de este estudio fue comparar los indicadores tácticos utilizados en la creación de ocasiones de gol entre Real Madrid C.F. (RMCF) y F.C. Barcelona (FCB). Todas las posesiones finalizadas en ocasión de gol (n=945) durante 64 partidos (32 por equipo) de la Liga BBVA 2011-2012 fueron analizadas a través de observación sistemática. Las posesiones fueron agrupadas según el tipo de inicio en “recuperaciones” (n=526), “reanudaciones” (n=199), y “acciones a balón parado” (n=175). 9 dimensiones relacionadas con indicadores tácticos fueron analizadas utilizando análisis chicuadrado. En recuperaciones, RMCF registro más penetración inicial (p<0.01), mayor porcentaje de contraataques (p<0.01), menor número de pases (p<0.01), más pases penetrativos (p<0.001), y mayor número de ocasiones de gol fuera del pentágono de finalización (p<0.01) que el FCB. En reanudaciones, la única diferencia fue el mayor número de ocasiones de gol fuera del pentágono de finalización del RMCF con respecto al FCB (p<0.001). Las mayores diferencias entre RMCF y FCB tuvieron lugar en la transición entre el momento defensivo y el ofensivo, donde el RMCF fue más penetrativo inmediatamente después de recuperar el balón, progresando más rápido y usando con mayor frecuencia el contraataque. En cambio, el FCB finalizó sus ocasiones de gol más cerca de la portería rival que el RMCF.Abstract. The aim of this study was to compare the playing tactics used to create scoring opportunities between Real Madrid C.F. (RMCF) and F.C. Barcelona (FCB). All team possessions which achieved scoring opportunity (n=945) during 64 matches (32 per team) corresponding to the 2011-2012 Spanish BBVA League were analyzed through systematical observation. Possessions were grouped according to the start-up type of possession into “recoveries” (n=526), “restarts” (n=199), and “set-plays” (n=175). Multidimensional data from nine categorical variables related to playing tactics were analyzed using chi-square analysis. In recoveries, RMCF registered higher initial penetration (p<0.01), higher percentage of counterattacks (p<0.01), fewer passes (p<0.01), higher percentage of penetrative passes (p<0.001) and greater number of scoring opportunities outside the score pentagon (p<0.01) than FCB. In restarts, the single difference was that RMCF registered greater number of scoring opportunities outside the score pentagon than FCB (p<0.001). The main differences between RMCF and FCB occurred in the transition between defense to attack, where RMCF was more penetrative immediately gaining the ball, progressed faster and used more frequently the counterattack. In contrast, FCB finished nearer the goal than RMCF.

SummaryIt is widely acknowledged that derbies between two teams from the same city or region catch more public attention than “normal” soccer matches. Terms such as “Old Firm” (Rangers vs. Celtic), “Merseyside” (Liverpool FC vs. Everton FC), “Superclásico” (Boca Juniors vs. River Plate), and “Revierderby” (Dortmund vs. Schalke) are well-known even to people outside their respective countries of origin. Using data from the German Bundesliga from 1999 to 2009, we test whether derbies differ from other soccer matches with respect to the number of goals scored by each team, match results, and referee evaluations. The results are very surprising given the enormous amount of public attention that derbies with their special character attract: we find that there are no significant differences between derbies and “normal” matches. Despite the importance of derbies for fans and the public, they turn out to be “normal” soccer matches in all other respects.

The Australian A-League soccer competition was established in 2004. The creation of a new national soccer league precipitated many changes within Australia’s football culture. These changes were particularly difficult for the supporters because, with a single exception, all the A-League teams were completely new ‘franchises’. The reinvented competition required soccer fans to adopt a new team, to develop new loyalties, new rituals, new places, and consequently a new fan identity. Vital to this act of re-creation has been the collective authorship of a ‘new’ repertoire of football songs. Football songs and communal singing are central to the traditions and performance of soccer fandom. Football song plays a key, perhaps even determining, role in the creation of fan identity. In this paper I examine the way football songs are used create a fan identity for Sydney’s new A-League side: Sydney FC. I argue that the result of Sydney fans’ conscious act of cultural creation is a repertoire of songs and chants that, although derived from an increasingly globalised and commodified football culture, is able to articulate a local identity. Moreover, these songs may even be thought to articulate a local and a global fan identity simultaneously, as fans connect local and distant spaces within global soccer culture.

Abstract The present study uses a quasi-experimental design to investigate the impact of team preferences on the accuracy of offside judgments. In Experiments 1 and 2, supporters of two German soccer clubs (i.e., Borussia Dortmund and FC Schalke 04) judged offsides in artificial scenes from a match between the clubs. We expected that supporters of both clubs would less frequently report the offside position of a forward from the preferred team. The results of Experiment 1 partly confirmed the predictions. Both groups reported the offside position of a yellow forward less frequently than that of a blue forward, and this effect was much larger for supporters of Borussia Dortmund than for supporters of Schalke 04. The difference between groups could be attributed to team preferences. The weaker effect of team preference in supporters of Schalke 04 was attributed to an unexpected perceptual effect that increased the accuracy of offside judgments for blue forwards in both groups. Experiments 2 and 3 showed the presumed effect of team preferences and the perceptual effect, respectively, in isolation. In summary, the results of our experiments provide evidence for (a) an effect of team preferences and (b) an effect of shirt–background contrast on offside judgments in soccer.

ObjectivesPatients with prostate cancer (PCa) benefit from regular exercise, but it is difficult for patients to maintain an exercise regime. We examined two exercise programmes that have proven to be self-sustaining with the goal of identifying features they share that may contribute to their success.MethodsWe compared the FC Prostata football (soccer) league in Denmark and the ‘Butts in a Boat’ (BIAB) dragon-boating team in Canada. The FC Prostata Project Coordinator and the BIAB team leaders provided information on their programmes’ history and structure.ResultsBoth programmes are team-based with regularly scheduled intense exercise at their core. In both cases, social activities evolved spontaneously, starting with the men going out for food and/or drinks after practices. The sustainability of these programmes may be driven by the regular socialisation linked to the fitness activities.ConclusionsOur case studies suggest that exercise programmes for PCa patients may have a good chance of being self-sustaining, if they are: (1) centred around intense exercise, (2) of a team nature, (3) structured to promote egalitarianism and avoid one-on-one competition within teams, yet (4) have some competitions between teams. The data suggest that informal social activities organised by patients after team practices may be important for building fellowship and strengthening patients’ commitment to exercise both for themselves and for their team members.

Se evaluó a los jugadores del equipo de futbol sub 17 de la Universidad Autónoma Del Caribe (UAC. FC), observando la salud física y emocional. La investigación fue de tipo cuantitativa, con un enfoque descriptivo. Se observó que la mayoría de los jugadores poseen un óptimo estado físico, aunque una minoría presenta cuadros gripales, cefaleas, erupciones en la piel y dolores musculares, entre otros afectando el desempeño deportivo. Con respecto a la salud emocional la mayoría de la población valorada manifestó un adecuado estado emocional, aunque una minoría ha presentado frustraciones, rabia y ansiedad. Ocasionando todo lo anterior un deterioro progresivo del proceso de comunicación multidireccional del cerebro con el sistema nervioso autónomo, el sistema endocrino y sistema inmune.

In 2016, Canada sports broadcaster TSN aired a documentary, Radical Play, which focuses on the players of football team Diverse City FC, many of whom are Muslim and wear hijabs. As posited in the documentary, following the lifting of FIFA’s ban on the wearing of the hijab, soccer became the women’s vehicle for gaining more confidence and agency, which they use to become social media “crusaders” who fight the online radicalization of girls and women. Utilizing theories of gendered Orientalism, I analyze Radical Play by exploring how Muslim sportswomen are constructed in relation to sport, radicalization, and empowerment. I argue that Radical Play frames Diverse City FC’s story through Western rescue discourses and construct a modernizing process where Muslim girls are said to be empowered by the power of Western sport. The constructed transformation of the women into radicalization informants that keep their communities’ safe acts as a preferred outcome of colonial benevolence and acceptance towards “development subjects.” While the main narrative of Radical Play is leveraged by gendered forms of Orientalism, a critical reading shows how the players voices create cracks in this overarching story that help unsettle dominant understandings of Muslim sportswomen.

On March 23, 2022, the field of food science lost a pioneering and impassioned scientist through the tragic and untimely passing of Prof. Michael Granvogl. Born on December 21, 1974 in Munich, Germany Michael’s inquisitive nature led him to study food chemistry at the Technical University of Munich (TUM). After graduating in 1998, he remained at TUM to pursue a doctoral degree (conferred in 2007), then habilitation (2016), qualifying him as Associate Professor in Food Chemistry. In 2019, Michael Granvogl was appointed Full Professor at the Institute of Food Chemistry, University of Hohenheim, Germany where he managed a young and dynamic team of enthusiastic scientists in their pursuits to push the boundaries of food chemistry research in their specialized disciplines. Indeed, Michael was a renowned international subject-matter expert on multiple facets of food chemistry, foremost on aroma-active compounds and food-borne toxicants, with a deep knowledge of their formation and degradation mechanisms, and with skilled application of effective extraction procedures and comprehensive analytical techniques to explore and elucidate their nature. Beyond his teaching and research, Michael was a staunch and dedicated member of the Division of Agricultural and Food Chemistry (AGFD) of the American Chemical Society (ACS), taking active and prominent roles on the executive committee to promote the field and support the next generation of scientists. As a native of the city of Munich, it might be noted that his passion for science, evidenced in lecture theaters and laboratories, was mirrored in his private life through his enthused and loyal support of his native soccer team, FC Bayern Munich. That team must now move forward with the loss of one dedicated fan, but the field of food chemistry – in particular the sub-discipline food bioactives – must overcome the void previously filled with Michael Granvogl’s stalwart presence and must cope with the absence of discoveries that will no longer materialize. There are many researchers in the field who lost a dedicated mentor, an esteemed colleague and a dear friend on that fateful day in spring 2022.

Shooting technique is a basic determining technique in futsal to get victory points. The ability to measure shooting techniques requires important component elements, one of which is balance, coordination, and leg muscle power. This study aims to determine the correlation of balance, coordination, and leg muscle power to the quality of shooting ability using the instep in futsal games. This research is a correlational research. This study was conducted with subjects totaling 20 athletes from the Escape FC team. The instruments used in this study were coordination tests using the Soccer Wall Volley Test, balance using the Modifield Bass Test, leg muscle power using Standing Broad or Long Jump and shooting skills using the target area of the shooting skill test. Data analysis techniques in this study using simple correlation test analysis using the product moment correlation formula and multiple correlation using regression line equations. Based on the results of this study showed: (1) the relationship between coordination on futsal shooting ability using instep R of 0.623 with sig value. of 0.003, (2) the relationship between balance and futsal shooting ability using instep R of 0.472 with sig value. of 0.002, (3) the relationship between leg muscle power and futsal shooting ability using instep R of 0.045 with sig value. of 0.000. (4) the relationship between coordination, balance, and leg muscle power on the ability to shoot futsal using the instep R of 0.809, R2 of 0.654 with a sig value. amounted to 0.001. So it can be concluded that the relationship between coordination, balance, and leg muscle power with the ability to shoot futsal using the instep in futsal sports is significant.

Lincolnshire, England. The crowd cheer when the ball breaks loose. From one end of the field to the other, the players chase, their snouts hovering just above the grass. It’s not a case of four legs being better, rather a novel way to attract customers to the Woodside Wildlife and Falconry Park. During the matches, volunteers are drawn from the crowd to hold goal posts at either end of the run the pigs usually race on. With five pigs playing, two teams of two and a referee, and a ball designed to leak feed as it rolls (Stevenson) the ten-minute competition is fraught with tension. While the pig’s contributions to “the beautiful game” (Fish and Pele 7) have not always been so obvious, it could be argued that specific parts of the animal have had a significant impact on a sport which, despite calls to fall into line with much of the rest of the world, people in Australia (and the US) are more likely to call soccer. The Football Precursors to the modern football were constructed around an inflated pig’s bladder (Price, Jones and Harland). Animal hide, usually from a cow, was stitched around the bladder to offer some degree of stability, but the bladder’s irregular and uneven form made for unpredictable movement in flight. This added some excitement and affected how ball games such as the often violent, calico matches in Florence, were played. In the early 1970s, the world’s oldest ball was discovered during a renovation in Stirling Castle, Scotland. The ball has a pig’s bladder inside its hand-stitched, deer-hide outer. It was found in the ceiling above the bed in, what was then Mary Queens of Scots’ bedroom. It has since been dated to the 1540s (McGinnes). Neglected and left in storage until the late 1990s, the ball found pride of place in an exhibition in the Smiths Art Gallery and Museum, Stirling, and only gained worldwide recognition (as we will see later) in 2006. Despite confirmed interest in a number of sports, there is no evidence to support Mary’s involvement with football (Springer). The deer-hide ball may have been placed to gather and trap untoward spirits attempting to enter the monarch’s sleep, or simply left by accident and forgotten (McGinnes in Springer). Mary, though, was not so fortunate. She was confined and forgotten, but only until she was put to death in 1587. The Executioner having gripped her hair to hold his prize aloft, realised too late it was a wig and Mary’s head bounced and rolled across the floor. Football Development The pig’s bladder was the central component in the construction of the football for the next three hundred years. However, the issue of the ball’s movement (the bounce and roll), the bladder’s propensity to burst when kicked, and an unfortunate wife’s end, conspired to push the pig from the ball before the close of the nineteenth-century. The game of football began to take its shape in 1848, when JC Thring and a few colleagues devised the Cambridge Rules. This compromised set of guidelines was developed from those used across the different ‘ball’ games played at England’s elite schools. The game involved far more kicking, and the pig’s bladders, prone to bursting under such conditions, soon became impractical. Charles Goodyear’s invention of vulcanisation in 1836 and the death of prestigious rugby and football maker Richard Lindon’s wife in 1870 facilitated the replacement of the animal bladder with a rubber-based alternative. Tragically, Mr Lindon’s chief inflator died as a result of blowing up too many infected pig’s bladders (Hawkesley). Before it closed earlier this year (Rhoads), the US Soccer Hall of Fame displayed a rubber football made in 1863 under the misleading claim that it was the oldest known football. By the late 1800s, professional, predominantly Scottish play-makers had transformed the game from its ‘kick-and-run’ origins into what is now called ‘the passing game’ (Sanders). Football, thanks in no small part to Scottish factory workers (Kay), quickly spread through Europe and consequently the rest of the world. National competitions emerged through the growing need for organisation, and the pig-free mass production of balls began in earnest. Mitre and Thomlinson’s of Glasgow were two of the first to make and sell their much rounder balls. With heavy leather panels sewn together and wrapped around a thick rubber inner, these balls were more likely to retain shape—a claim the pig’s bladder equivalent could not legitimately make. The rubber-bladdered balls bounced more too. Their weight and external stitching made them more painful to header, but also more than useful for kicking and particularly for passing from one player to another. The ball’s relatively quick advancement can thereafter be linked to the growth and success of the World Cup Finals tournament. Before the pig re-enters the fray, it is important to glance, however briefly, at the ball’s development through the international game. World Cup Footballs Pre-tournament favourites, Spain, won the 2010 FIFA World Cup, playing with “an undistorted, perfectly spherical ball” (Ghosh par. 7), the “roundest” ever designed (FIFA par.1). Their victory may speak to notions of predictability in the ball, the tournament and the most lucrative levels of professional endeavour, but this notion is not a new one to football. The ball’s construction has had an influence on the way the game has been played since the days of Mary Queen of Scots. The first World Cup Final, in 1930, featured two heavy, leather, twelve-panelled footballs—not dissimilar to those being produced in Glasgow decades earlier. The players and officials of Uruguay and Argentina could not agree, so they played the first half with an Argentine ball. At half-time, Argentina led by two goals to one. In the second half, Uruguay scored three unanswered goals with their own ball (FIFA). The next Final was won by Italy, the home nation in 1934. Orsi, Italy’s adopted star, poked a wildly swerving shot beyond the outstretched Czech keeper. The next day Orsi, obligated to prove his goal was not luck or miracle, attempted to repeat the feat before an audience of gathered photographers. He failed. More than twenty times. The spin on his shot may have been due to the, not uncommon occurrence, of the ball being knocked out of shape during the match (FIFA). By 1954, the Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) had sought to regulate ball size and structure and, in 1958, rigorously tested balls equal to the demands of world-class competition. The 1950s also marked the innovation of the swerving free kick. The technique, developed in the warm, dry conditions of the South American game, would not become popular elsewhere until ball technology improved. The heavy hand-stitched orb, like its early counterparts, was prone to water absorption, which increased the weight and made it less responsive, particularly for those playing during European winters (Bray). The 1970 World Cup in Mexico saw football progress even further. Pele, arguably the game’s greatest player, found his feet, and his national side, Brazil, cemented their international football prominence when they won the Jules Rimet trophy for the third time. Their innovative and stylish use of the football in curling passes and bending free kicks quickly spread to other teams. The same World Cup saw Adidas, the German sports goods manufacturer, enter into a long-standing partnership with FIFA. Following the competition, they sold an estimated six hundred thousand match and replica tournament footballs (FIFA). The ball, the ‘Telstar’, with its black and white hexagonal panels, became an icon of the modern era as the game itself gained something close to global popularity for the first time in its history. Over the next forty years, the ball became incrementally technologically superior. It became synthetic, water-resistant, and consistent in terms of rebound and flight characteristics. It was constructed to be stronger and more resistant to shape distortion. Internal layers of polyutherane and Syntactic Foam made it lighter, capable of greater velocity and more responsive to touch (FIFA). Adidas spent three years researching and developing the 2006 World Cup ball, the ‘Teamgeist’. Fourteen panels made it rounder and more precise, offering a lower bounce, and making it more difficult to curl due to its accuracy in flight. At the same time, audiences began to see less of players like Roberto Carlos (Brazil and Real Madrid CF) and David Beckham (Manchester United, LA Galaxy and England), who regularly scored goals that challenged the laws of physics (Gill). While Adidas announced the 2006 release of the world’s best performing ball in Berlin, the world’s oldest was on its way to the Museum fur Volkerkunde in Hamburg for the duration of the 2006 FIFA World Cup. The Mary Queen of Scot’s ball took centre spot in an exhibit which also featured a pie stand—though not pork pies—from Hibernian Football Club (Strang). In terms of publicity and raising awareness of the Scots’ role in the game’s historical development, the installation was an unrivalled success for the Scottish Football Museum (McBrearty). It did, however, very little for the pig. Heads, not Tails In 2002, the pig or rather the head of a pig, bounced and rolled back into football’s limelight. For five years Luis Figo, Portugal’s most capped international player, led FC Barcelona to domestic and European success. In 2000, he had been lured to bitter rivals Real Madrid CF for a then-world record fee of around £37 million (Nash). On his return to the Catalan Camp Nou, wearing the shimmering white of Real Madrid CF, he was showered with beer cans, lighters, bottles and golf balls. Among the objects thrown, a suckling pig’s head chimed a psychological nod to the spear with two sharp ends in William Golding’s story. Play was suspended for sixteen minutes while police tried to quell the commotion (Lowe). In 2009, another pig’s head made its way into football for different reasons. Tightly held in the greasy fingers of an Orlando Pirates fan, it was described as a symbol of the ‘roasting’ his team would give the Kaiser Chiefs. After the game, he and his friend planned to eat their mascot and celebrate victory over their team’s most reviled competitors (Edwards). The game ended in a nil-all draw. Prior to the 2010 FIFA World Cup, it was not uncommon for a range of objects that European fans might find bizarre, to be allowed into South African league matches. They signified luck and good feeling, and in some cases even witchcraft. Cabbages, known locally for their medicinal qualities, were very common—common enough for both sets of fans to take them (Edwards). FIFA, an organisation which has more members than the United Nations (McGregor), impressed their values on the South African Government. The VuVuZela was fine to take to games; indeed, it became a cultural artefact. Very little else would be accepted. Armed with their economy-altering engine, the world’s most watched tournament has a tendency to get what it wants. And the crowd respond accordingly. Incidentally, the ‘Jabulani’—the ball developed for the 2010 tournament—is the most consistent football ever designed. In an exhaustive series of tests, engineers at Loughborough University, England, learned, among other things, the added golf ball-like grooves on its surface made the ball’s flight more symmetrical and more controlled. The Jabulani is more reliable or, if you will, more predictable than any predecessor (Ghosh). Spanish Ham Through support from their Governing body, the Real Federación Española de Fútbol, Spain have built a national side with experience, and an unparalleled number of talented individuals, around the core of the current FC Barcelona club side. Their strength as a team is founded on the bond between those playing on a weekly basis at the Catalan club. Their style has allowed them to create and maintain momentum on the international stage. Victorious in the 2008 UEFA European Football Championship and undefeated in their run through the qualifying stages into the World Cup Finals in South Africa, they were tournament favourites before a Jabulani was rolled into touch. As Tim Parks noted in his New York Review of Books article, “The Shame of the World Cup”, “the Spanish were superior to an extent one rarely sees in the final stages of a major competition” (2010 par. 15). They have a “remarkable ability to control, hold and hide the ball under intense pressure,” and play “a passing game of great subtlety [ ... to] patiently wear down an opposing team” (Parks par. 16). Spain won the tournament having scored fewer goals per game than any previous winner. Perhaps, as Parks suggests, they scored as often as they needed to. They found the net eight times in their seven matches (Fletcher). This was the first time that Spain had won the prestigious trophy, and the first time a European country has won the tournament on a different continent. In this, they have broken the stranglehold of superpowers like Germany, Italy and Brazil. The Spanish brand of passing football is the new benchmark. Beautiful to watch, it has grace, flow and high entertainment value, but seems to lack something of an organic nature: that is, it lacks the chance for things to go wrong. An element of robotic aptitude has crept in. This occurred on a lesser scale across the 2010 FIFA World Cup finals, but it is possible to argue that teams and players, regardless of nation, have become interchangeable, that the world’s best players and the way they play have become identikits, formulas to be followed and manipulated by master tacticians. There was a great deal of concern in early rounds about boring matches. The world’s media focused on an octopus that successfully chose the winner of each of Germany’s matches and the winner of the final. Perhaps, in shaping the ‘most’ perfect ball and the ‘most’ perfect football, the World Cup has become the most predictable of tournaments. In Conclusion The origins of the ball, Orsi’s unrepeatable winner and the swerving free kick, popular for the best part of fifty years, are worth remembering. These issues ask the powers of football to turn back before the game is smothered by the hunt for faultlessness. The unpredictability of the ball goes hand in hand with the game. Its flaws underline its beauty. Football has so much more transformative power than lucrative evolutionary accretion. While the pig’s head was an ugly statement in European football, it is a symbol of hope in its South African counterpart. Either way its removal is a reminder of Golding’s message and the threat of homogeneity; a nod to the absence of the irregular in the modern era. Removing the curve from the free kick echoes the removal of the pig’s bladder from the ball. The fun is in the imperfection. Where will the game go when it becomes indefectible? Where does it go from here? Can there really be any validity in claiming yet another ‘roundest ball ever’? Chip technology will be introduced. The ball’s future replacements will be tracked by satellite and digitally-fed, reassured referees will determine the outcome of difficult decisions. Victory for the passing game underlines the notion that despite technological advancement, the game has changed very little since those pioneering Scotsmen took to the field. Shouldn’t we leave things the way they were? Like the pigs at Woodside Wildlife and Falconry Park, the level of improvement seems determined by the level of incentive. The pigs, at least, are playing to feed themselves. Acknowledgments The author thanks editors, Donna Lee Brien and Adele Wessell, and the two blind peer reviewers, for their constructive feedback and reflective insights. The remaining mistakes are his own. References “Adidas unveils Golden Ball for 2006 FIFA World Cup Final” Adidas. 18 Apr. 2006. 23 Aug. 2010 . 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