As with every other World Cup ball, I'm sure most of the players will end up calling it a travesty. What makes a great ball for them is that they win with it. They'd call a bag of rusty nails the best ball ever if they won the World Cup with it.
I don't know, we're four games in and nobody's really raised anything that I've seen. This far into the World Cup in 2010 people were already freaking out about the Jabulani
1. Turbulent flow of air over ball means ball has less drag: this happens at high speed
2. As ball slows down, gets laminar flow, gets more drag: viscous drag is less but boundary separation occurs close to ball
3. You want ball to be fast enough to be entertaining. People considered Jabulani slow because it entered laminar flow earlier than others.
4. Interesting that Jabulani was faster at high speeds, but the transition was earlier and sharper as it slowed down
5. Al Rihla transitions to laminar latest and drag increases later than every other ball
Very cool! Of course, the Jabulani was known to waver and swerve, which makes sense now that we see this chart since if various parts of the ball are experiencing laminar v turbulent, the ball will (perhaps unpredictably) swerve. And if that happens at higher speeds than otherwise, you'll have whacky behaviour. Neat!
That's a neat factoid but ignores why it's called that: it was originally part of the Rancho La Brea (which was named that for obvious reasons) land grant by the Spanish, and there are oil seeps in other areas of the LA basin. So if you want to refer to that (huge) one specifically, you more or less have to call it that.
As someone who says "football" - by now, nobody's going to be persuaded to change how they currently refer to the sport. It's called "football", but it's also called "soccer" - that's fine.
Indeed. There's world football, the most popular sport in the world, and then there's American football which is this rugby clone with body armour that's only a thing in the US (NFL).
I never understood why Americans call it 'foot'-'ball' when the sport is mostly played with the hands rather than exclusively with the feet as in world football.
Was it a patriotism thing, to ignore the world's most popular sport, and make their own one where America will always be no. 1?
It's kind of ironic that your comment, which is complaining about US-centrism, is itself fatally US-centric. If you considered the broader world and historical context you'd see that "football" is an overloaded term that refers to very different things in different times and places.
"Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word football normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used."
Why call it soccer? Maybe it's because the English, who invented it, called it that in 1895.
"The term soccer comes from Oxford "-er" slang, which was prevalent at the University of Oxford in England from about 1875, and is thought to have been borrowed from the slang of Rugby School. The slang also gave rise to rugger for rugby football, fiver and tenner for a five-pound and ten-pound note, and the now-archaic footer for association football.[12] The word soccer (which arrived at its final form in 1895) was first recorded in 1889 in the earlier form of socca.[13]"
So, you see, when the Aussies call their thing "football" it's an interesting cultural quirk but when Americans do the same it's because they are big dumb. And how ignorant and culturally domineering of them to call a sport by the name that the inventors of that sport coined for it. Man, these Americans!
People keep complaining about this when it's really not a thing, and it has nothing to do with the USA.
For example in European-ish countries it's called Calcio (to kick) in Italy, Nogomet (leg) in Boznia/Croatia, mappa (ball) in Cyprus, labdarugas officially (ball-kicking) in Hungary.
There's another 8 or so countries where it's called another form of kick/ball/leg/something etc.
Finally it's called soccer in about 15 countries, of which the USA is only 1, where almost none of them have another variant of football.
The name "calcio" is ubiquitous in Italy, but the "Football" term is very common, where it is part of the official name of many clubs, e.g. Juventus Football Club.
And in many languages a word directly derived from "Football" is common to refer to the game.
And in my town and many in the US. The clubs are named "Football Club" while the majority of society calls it soccer. There's simply no other way to distinguish between the sports other than using the term soccer. I'm open for any suggestions that don't also involve changing the name of the most popular sport here.
Why not count by English-speaking people? Of whom almost half are North American (US+Canada) and would call it "Soccer", and then so do the Australians, Irish, and several others.
For the sake of the argument, let's also include the Global South for a second: The Indians, the Pakistanis, the Bangladeshis, the Kenyans, and the Nigerians who call it football.
>Was it a patriotism thing, to ignore the world's most popular sport, and make their own one where America will always be no. 1?
In America they were playing something like rugby football and eventually dropped the rugby part at roughly the same time England was playing association football and dropped the association part. It was hardly the most popular worldwide sport at the time.
I still don’t understand why people watch american football over rugby. American football tried to alienate the audience by stopping the game and showing ads all the time. Rugby is a continuous game that’s much more fun to watch and has somewhat similar rules
Is it fair to say then that this is the 'fastest' ball ever?
Since perhaps the average speed of the ball in-game is around the transition speeds and so this ball's lower transition speed makes it overall faster than the ball with lower drags at higher speeds (since the ball is rarely at those high speeds).
> I do an analysis of the new World Cup ball to see what went into creating the centerpiece of the world’s most beautiful game.
Most popular? Sure. Most beautiful? That seems to be in the eye of a soccer fan beholder, but it turns out Wikipedia agrees on the phrasing [1], and there are websites devoted to explaining it [2].
May I request any and all Qatar world cup -related poster first check out John Oliver's take about that evil spawn of corruption and climate change?
After that, you won't want to post about that QWC!
The divine aura that envelops global tournaments like the World Cup, the Olympic Games etc derives in large part from the principle that we can put political differences aside and engage in friendly combat on a level playing field for a few days, whoever we are.
It's a principle constantly under attack from people who believe that politics must infuse everything, that there can be no arena exempt from enforcing whatever is on top of their agenda.
And that's ok - there are lines in the sand that must be drawn when amicable jousting is no longer an option. For every major tournament the question needs to be asked, has the host or any participating country crossed that line? And be aware that if we say yes; "the line is crossed", we also sully the divine aura to some extent.
I loved how he did a 20 minute piece full of outrage and then at the end said he was watching the games but we have to “draw a line” somewhere… I mean how about drawing a line at taking part by watching? It’s not too much to ask is it?
I think that's a setting the stage for a set of purity tests nobody can pass. He's done far more damage to the tournament by making that broadcast as a famous person, than he could by boycotting as an individual. You could argue that he shouldn't have said he would watch it, but I think that would've been dishonest.
What damage has he done to the tournament? I’m not arguing that he should be dishonest, I just find it bizarre that he could seem so outraged but be unwilling to suffer the minor inconvenience of not watching some football matches.
The surest way to send a message to FIFA is to hit viewership numbers. Performative outrage will achieve exactly nothing.
Are you seriously saying that it’s more important that the number of viewers on ESPN (or whoever, who have already paid FIFA) for USA v Wales reads 5,628,273 rather than 5,628,274 … than a man who has millions of followers loudly and proudly declaring they won’t be swayed by sportswashing and that nobody else should be either (while exposing in detail exactly why)?
No I’m saying if viewership was down 50% for this World Cup Fifa do you think Fifa would do this again? Are you seriously saying that you think FIFA care one bit about some TV personality making strident declarations while acknowledging loudly that they will continue to consume FIFAs product?
Yes FIFA absolutely care that basically all coverage of the World Cup across the world mentions that it is a fucking shambles, cost countless thousands of lives and has basically exposed their corruption. They won't stop being corrupt, but they'll be much less egregious next time - they simply cannot pull off another Qatar. Hell, even Sepp Blatter admitted it was a mistake ahead of the tournament.
It’s supposed to be a news program that’s funny but it tends to lean a bit hard on the jokes and plays a little loose with the research. Generally accurate but trying a bit too hard for one viewpoint / hilarious outrage.
There’s a type of comedy that is funnier if it contains some truths.
On his case, the social criticism is the true part of while other parts like the self deprecation and random bits of pop culture references (“how many movies has this actor done this year?”) are there as supporting jokes.
Is there anything in particular you think Oliver (or any other left-leaning comedian) has been wrong about, or is this more of a gut-feel thing?
Also is it necessary to specify "left" when talking about comedy? I can't really think of anyone right-wing who can be called a comedian. Guys like Crowder and Gutfeld are the closest but they kinda struggle with joke construction, material and they paint themselves into a corner (and tbh delegitimize themselves a bit) by their uncritical, fawning adoration of some pretty ridiculous political figures.
If you're looking for good right wing comics, you're not going to hear about them from Hollywood or the Mass Media. Look for them on YouTube or somewhere where you won't get deplatformed for making a joke.
People can't even handle sets from Dave Chappelle or Ricky Gervais without calling for a boycott.
These are interesting examples, because Dave Chappelle was a genuinely good comic but he had a rocky comeback after a prolonged absence (understandable) took it badly and started lashing out at kids-these-days, then "cancel culture" and then drifted into what we see today. Ricky Gervais has written some pretty spectacular comedy, but his stand-up has never been particularly well respected. He has often tried to go for shock value, but it's never been that shocking (certainly nothing like Jerry Sadowitz), creative or - most importantly - funny.
None of these guys got suddenly deplatformed, cancelled or boycotted because of a joke. They struggled a bit, made some missteps then blamed their audience and "cancel culture" when it wasn't well received. They can still be funny, but when they're airing their grievances about that (i.e. doing the stuff that the right like) it's obvious, awkward and a bit painful.
That's fair. I'm still not sure who would be an example of a good right-wing comic, though. Most of what I’ve seen involved material that’s repetitive (how many by now have delivered a variant of the One Conservative Joke - “I identify as an attack helicopter”?) and was designed to make the viewer validated in their right-wing beliefs at the expense of, say, some clueless “libtard” rather than exploring the form at all (ie it’s to make you “clap”).
I dunno, I saw someone complaining about left-wing comedians was curious to hear who might be a right-wing comic.
There are quite a few decent ones that are not overtly political that you might enjoy, like Ryan Long.
> Most of what I’ve seen involved material that’s repetitive (how many by now have delivered a variant of the One Conservative Joke - “I identify as an attack helicopter”?) and was designed to make the viewer validated in their right-wing beliefs at the expense of, say, some clueless “libtard” rather than exploring the form at all (ie it’s to make you “clap”).
I agree that validating beliefs makes for boring comedy.
Content producers don't care. Do you know the size of the pageview-boner these people get when a mass murderer posts a screed/video online so they can justify talking about it as tech news? It's almost like a game at this point, seeing how long it takes sites I read news about video cards on to figure out a way to generate ad revenue from hate and death.
The stories of migrant workers have been part of World Cup for many tournaments. Civil rights has never been a high priority to FIFA, else there would be no country left to choose. The Olympics share the same situation, and apparently, the same level of corruption. Yet we talk about the Olympics.
I don't recall stadia of previous tournaments being built almost entirely by migrant workers. And said migrants working under such poor conditions. Can you name a few you consider comparable?
Were they international migrants, or domestic? I ask because if it's the latter, you're seeing numbers the CCP were happy to admit to, 100 deaths is already a lot but it is likely to be higher.
wasn't intending to be whatabouts. just pointing out that the tournament has a long history of this kind of stuff. it's not new. it might be TIL for people unfamiliar with the tournament, so feel free to pile on and beat a dead horse. as the saying goes, there's no better zealot than a new convert.
It's not a dead horse if this keeps happening. If anything, it's an unfortunately overly healthy and alive horse. The fact that it's nothing new for the tournament should lead to more condemnation of it, not less.
Request denied. I've decided to watch a game of the world cup (my first ever, probably just the final) without checking to see what John Oliver has to say about it.
I will also not check to see what Kate Winslet's take is.
Now I need to find someplace that streams the world cup.
