With a little more than a week before the opening kickoff, the European Championship's official "Roteiro" ball already is a target of derision.
Official suppliers use major tournaments to introduce their latest designs. And just like two years ago at the World Cup, Adidas' latest marvel is being dismissed by some as an unworthy gimmick.
Italian midfielder Andrea Pirlo compared the Roteiro to "plastic balls used by children." Dutch all-rounder Philippe Cocu, however, described it "like a brick."
Even coaches drastically will need to adapt strategy, if Czech coach Karel Bruckner is right.
"Soccer is a totally different game with Roteiro," he said in the runup to the June 12-July 4 tournament.
The Roteiro is a bedazzling trick of the brain produced by Adidas, a ball with a seamless, stitchless surface that the German company said was produced with "innovative power balance technology." It was named after the log of Portuguese seafarer Vasco da Gama.
At the World Cup in Japan and South Korea, many players complained that Adidas' Fevernova ball was too light, despite it meeting International Board standards, and that it "fluttered."
Then, Adidas explained that while the ball's asymetrical printed design may have made it appear to wobble in flight, it was the same ball used earlier in the year in the European Champions League final that drew no complaints.
Similarly this year, Adidas' paid spokesmen are touting the Roteiro as the best ever while others accuse it of untrue flight.
"No one has ever seen anything like it," Real Madrid's David Beckham said. "My free kicks improved from using this ball."
Goalkeepers should be warned.
"Truly the most precise ball I have ever kicked," Portugal's Rui Costa said.
Usually, the goalkeepers complain since a lighter, more sensitive ball is always to the advantage of the forward attacking goal.
"It was made to put goalkeepers in trouble, to make us cut an ugly figure," Italy's regular goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon said.
Goalkeepers were the major discontents at the 2002 World Cup. They said the swerve of the ball made their job unduly difficult. The Tricolore 1998 World Cup ball also had its detractors and so did the Questra ball in 1994. All of those balls were made by Adidas.
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