Observers Book of Germany 2006 - First Issue

As per usual, every World Cup tournament brings sees the release of a new football, and as per usual a lot of fuss has been made over the balls charateristics and movement in the air.

Germany 2006 sees the introduction of the Adidas 'Teamgeist', which is German for "Beach Ball".

I think...

Anyway, with the World Cup now in its sixth day, I have noticed a few things possibly related to the ball.

Thing 1 : The amount of good goals.
I cant remember a World Cup that has started with this many great goals. We had two great goals from Germany in the opening game (Lahm and Frings) and that has continued thus far with Rosicky of the Czech Republic to my current favourite, Mohamed of Togo.

Thing 2 : The amount of shots from distance.
With the ball moving as it does, it makes sense to have long range shots.

Thing 3 : The amount of great saves.
The balls unpredictablitly in the air has supposedly made it harder for keepers to judge the flight of the ball - has this resulted in the keepers being at full stretch and at the top of their game to make some of the outstanding saves we have seen so far?

Thing 4 : No penalties award. (Correct at time of going to press)
This is just a theory, but due to the movement of the ball, a lot of teams have been hitting shots from outside the penalty area (see Thing 2, above). Attacking players in the penalty area and therefore the amount of fouls made in the box will be reduced.

They are just my observations and theories and I could, of course, be totally wrong.

The Observers Book of The World Cup

Written by Smart

After watching a wealth of programmes on TV, the stack of DVD's free with cereal packets and potatoes, and after reading all World Cup magazines and guides that you get free with the weekend newspapers (by the way, I dont get out much...) I have made a few observations ...

1. The depth of the goal nets gets deeper with every tournament.
In the days of black and white, the goals were about 3 foot deep and rumours are the nets for Germany 2006 will have been borrowed from the fishing village of Bremenhaven...

2. Goalies used to roll around after conceding a goal.
It took the officials years to find Lee Harvey Oswald amongst the crowd.

3. Bald men score some great goals.
Archie Gemill... Bobby Charlton... Yordan Letchkov...

4. Older kits had baggy shirts and tight shorts.
Most modern kits have tight shirts and baggy shorts.

5. You can see f**k all when they chuck 'ticker-tape' about.
The 1978 World Cup Final was responsible for over 2,000 deaths worldwide. This is because some of the viewing millions fell off the roofs of their homes trying to adjust the TV aerial to remove the 'snow' and interference from picture.

Feel free to add to the list if you have noticed anymore.