Making a ball out of new materials, with new techniques and with a smaller number of panels, changes how the ball flies through the air. Over the past three World Cups, Adidas tried to balance the panel number, seam properties and surface texture to create balls with just the right aerodynamics.

The eight-panel Jabulani ball in the 2010 South Africa World Cup had textured panels to make up for shorter seams and a fewer number of panels. Despite Adidas’ efforts, the Jabulani was a controversial ball, with many players complaining that it decelerated abruptly. When my colleagues and I analyzed the ball in a wind tunnel, we found that the Jabulani was too smooth overall and so had a higher drag coefficient than the 2006 Teamgesit ball.

The World Cup balls for Brazil in 2014 – the Brazuca – and Russia in 2018 – the Telstar 18 – both had six oddly shaped panels. Though they had slightly different surface textures, they had generally the same overall surface roughness and, therefore, similar aerodynamic properties. Players generally liked the Brazuca and Telstar 18, but some complained about the tendency of the Telstar 18 to pop easily.

The new Qatar World Cup soccer ball is the Al Rihla.

The Al Rihla is made with water-based inks and glues and contains 20 panels. Eight of these are small triangles with roughly equal sides, and 12 are larger and shaped sort of like an ice cream cone.

Instead of using raised textures to increase surface roughness like with previous balls, the Al Rihla is covered with dimplelike features that give its surface a relatively smooth feel compared to its predecessors.

To make up for the smoother feel, the Al Rihla’s seams are wider and deeper – perhaps learning from the mistakes of the overly smooth Jabulani, which had the shallowest and shortest seams of recent World Cup balls and which many players felt was slow in the air.

My colleagues in Japan tested the four most recent World Cup balls in a wind tunnel at the University of Tsukuba.

When air flow transitions from turbulent to laminar flow, the drag coefficient rises rapidly. When this happens to a ball in flight, the ball will suddenly experience a steep increase in drag and slow down abruptly.

Most of the World Cup balls we tested made that transition at roughly 36 mph (58 kph). As expected, the Jubalani is the outlier, with a transition speed around 51 mph (82 kph). Considering that most free kicks start off traveling in excess of 60 mph (97 kph), it makes sense that players felt the Jabulani was slow and hard to predict. The Al Rihla has aerodynamic characteristics very similar to its two predecessors, and if anything, may even move a bit faster at lower speeds.

Every new ball is met with complaints from somebody, but the science shows that the Al Rihla should feel familiar to the players in this year’s World Cup.

This article is republished from The Conversation, an independent nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. It was written by: John Eric Goff, University of Lynchburg. The Conversation has a variety of fascinating free newsletters.

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John Eric Goff does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.