The World Cup is fast approaching.....the science of the football

The early forms of football played in England, sometimes referred to as "mob football", would be played between neighbouring towns and villages, involving an unlimited number of players on opposing teams who would clash en masse, struggling to move an item, such as inflated animal's bladder to particular geographical points, such as their opponents' church, with play taking place in the open space between neighbouring parishes.

The 2014 FIFA World Cup will be the 20th FIFA World Cup, that is scheduled to take place in Brazil from 12 June to 13 July 2014.

The first balls were made of natural materials, such as an inflated pig bladder, later put inside a leather cover, which has given rise to the United States slang-term "pigskin". Modern balls are designed by teams of engineers to exacting specifications, with rubber or plastic bladders, and often with plastic covers. Various leagues and games use different balls.

The precise shape and construction of footballs is typically specified as part of the rules and regulations.

Most modern footballs are stitched from 32 panels of waterproofed leather or plastic: 12 regular pentagons and 20 regular hexagons. The 32-panel configuration is the spherical polyhedron corresponding to the truncated icosahedron; it is spherical because the faces bulge from the pressure of the air inside.

The first 32-panel ball was marketed by Select in the 1950s in Denmark. This configuration became common throughout Continental Europe in the 1960s, and was publicised worldwide by the Adidas Telstar, the official ball of the 1970 World Cup.

A truncated icosahedron (left) compared with a football

The familiar 32-panel football design is sometimes referenced to describe the truncated icosahedron Archimedean solid, carbon buckyballs (as below) or the root structure of geodesic domes.

Buckminsterfullerene C₆₀

There are a number of different types of football balls depending on the match and turf including: training footballs, match footballs, professional match footballs, beach footballs, street footballs, indoor footballs, turf balls, futsal footballs and mini/skills footballs.

For more information visit:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_(ball)
http://www.labnews.co.uk/features/the-science-of-football/
http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/matches/