Take the time to read the following article, surely you will benefit from the research that been conducted in order for it to be written.

Although normally called soccer, another less popular name for the sport is football, a concept that renders the full specificity of the game. Before the modern invention of the official soccer ball, the early history of the game mentions all sorts of improvised balls made of human heads, skulls, bladders and wrapped up cloths. In the Middle Ages, inflated animal bladders were the most frequently used balls, and gradually they started being covered in leather. Charles Goodyear patented vulcanized rubber in 1836 and became the father of the first official soccer ball in 1855. Then, inflatable bladders started being produced in 1862, after H.J. Lindon invented them.

There are significant features to consider if we are to consider the official soccer ball chronologically. Periodically, the producer of the official ball changes, although the basic quality standards remain the same. Another aspect regarding the official soccer balls used in time is that of the manufacturing companies that have been entrusted to produce these items. Thus we ought to refer to Puma, Brine, Nike or Adidas that design soccer balls following the regulations and laws established by the international football organisms and associations (FIFA).

A first official soccer ball worth mentioning was Telstar, used in Mexico in 1970. Adidas started to produce soccer balls in 1963; they created the first official FIFA World Cup ball in 1970. It was the first ball that had 32 black and white panels and it was more easily noticeable on black and white televisions. Two Adidas soccer balls were afterwards launched in Germany, in 1974. Telstar appeared again but this time the gold branding was replaced by a black one. Then Adidas introduced a new all-black version of the official soccer ball called Adidas Chile, after an all-white ball previously tested in Chile in 1962. Both the techniques and materials used in Telstar and Chile were the same as those used in the making of the balls in 1970.

To count some more of the balls that have won the official soccer ball status there are: Tango Durlast 1978 with lots of elegance, passion and dynamism, Tango Espana, 1982 designed in natural leather, Azteca, Mexico 1986, the first polyurethane rain resistant coated ball, Etrvsco Unico, Italy, or in 1990 the first ball based on an internal polyurethane foam layer.

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