Why is football charged before every FIFA world cup match? Because this is the first time that a semi-automated football has been used in the World Cup, which means that it has high-tech sensors to assist officials, and because of this, footballs need to be charged before each game, the official tournament ball will be provided by Adidas, which is also an official partner of FIFA for the event. The official game ball will be known as “Al Rihla,” an Arabic word that translates to “journey.” The official ‘Al Rihla’ footballs used at the World Cup in Qatar are so high-tech that they need to be charged in addition to having air pumped into them before the tournament can begin.
The ball, which Adidas manufactures, has a sensor on the inside that monitors data like speed and direction and enables the video assistant referee to follow the ball and make offside decisions. An earlier report by Daily Mail reported that a great shot released on Reddit showed the fluorescent balls being charged from a power board before a game. The charging process was similar to that of a smartphone.
Since FIFA and Adidas first established their working partnership, more than half a century has passed. Since 1970, Adidas has been the exclusive provider of the official match ball for every match in the FIFA World Cup.
People used to rummage around to find a bicycle pump and then put a little oil or butter on a tiny needle linked to the pump to put air into a football simply. Thankfully, those days are long gone. According to Adidas, the sensor is powered by a small battery that may last up to 18 days when not in use but can endure up to six hours of active usage.
The sensor, which is just 14 grams in weight, provides real-time ball tracking, and cameras placed all over the field assist referees in determining whether or not a player is offside and making other contentious calls. Maximillian Schmidt, who was the co-founder and managing director of KINEXON, the company that created the sensor, said:
"The system catches up on the ball's movement at a rate of 500 frames per second whenever it is kicked, headed, tossed, or even touched. Data is sent in real-time from sensors to a local positioning system comprised of network antennas positioned all over the playing field. These network antennas take in the data and store it so that it may be used immediately. When a ball flies out of bounds during play, and a new ball is thrown or kicked in to replace it, the backend system of KINEXON automatically changes to the data input of the new ball without the need for any human interaction,"
Even though machines are not infallible, with many people criticizing the VAR in the first game between Qatar and Ecuador for not allowing a goal to be scored by Enner Valencia, it is not only about the data that the ball may pull, either. During the match between Portugal and Uruguay, it was found that Bruno Fernandes, not Cristiano Ronaldo, was the one who scored a goal with this high-tech sensor football. This decision brought sensor football into the spotlight. Before this FIFA World Cup match, no one had heard of this technologically superior soccer ball.
Franziska Loffelmann, the Design Director of Football Graphics and Hardwear at Adidas, said the ball was also rapid.
The ball can keep a significantly higher speed thanks to the new design, which allows it to travel through the air at a considerably faster rate. For the most extensive global stage in all sports, we set out to make the impossible possible through radical innovation by creating the quickest and most accurate FIFA World Cup ball ever produced.
Dimples on the ball’s surface give it a considerably smoother feel in addition to the extra speed that comes from the fact that it is manufactured using water-based inks and glues as opposed to the raised textures used in earlier versions of the ball.
“Year after year, it becomes better for the attackers, and for us goalkeepers, it gets extremely challenging; this is a rapid ball,” KINEXON, the company that makes the sensor, spent six years creating and testing the sensor before it was released to the public. Every single ball has a gadget inside it with two sensors, each used for a different reason. The first sensor is an ultra-wideband (UWB) sensor, which is more accurate than GPS or Bluetooth. The second sensor is an inertial measurement unit (IMU), which provides a more detailed look at how the ball travels in space.
The sensors start collecting data at a rate of 500 frames per second as soon as a ball is kicked, and they continue to do so continuously. This information is instantaneously communicated to the local positioning system (LPS) deployed everywhere over the field. The LPS archives the data so that it may be used immediately.
If you want to know more information, then click here.
