StarTalk Radio - #ICYMI - Extended Classic: Planet Soccer, with Neil deGrasse Tyson

Episode Date: June 14, 2018

In case you missed this episode on the Playing with Science channel… Re-visit Planet Soccer as we gear up for the 2018 FIFA World Cup with Chuck Nice, Gary O’Reilly, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and former NY Cosmos assistant coach and MLS All-Star Alecko Eskandarian. Now extended with physicist John Eric Goff telling us all about the new Telstar 18.NOTE: StarTalk All-Access subscribers can listen to this entire episode commercial-free here: https://www.startalkradio.net/all-access/extended-classic-planet-soccer-with-neil-degrasse-tysonPhoto Credit: XiXinXing/iStock Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to new episodes ad-free and a whole week early.

I'm Gary O'Reilly. And I'm Chuck Nice. And this is Playing With Science. Welcome to Playing With Science. I'm Gary O'Reilly. Today's show is Planet Soccer. Chuck Nice, of course, will be with us, as will be your own, very own, personal astrophysicist, Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson and Major League Soccer's Aleko Eskandarian, former US man's international player and a player, and you're going to love this doctor, who played for the LA Galaxy and the New York Cosmos. So what better, better way to start the show. But just as a teaser, just to let you know, at the end, we will be talking to our very good friend, Professor Eric Goff from Lynchburg College in Virginia, who has become a bit of a world export. Export? Yes, expert even.

On the Adidas Telstar 18 ball, which will be used in the World Cup in Russia this year. So stick around for that. I know he has tested it thoroughly, put it in a wind tunnel, written a paper, and there isn't anything he doesn't know about it. Well, I've said that now. I hope he does know everything. Let's get on with the show, shall we? Stick around for the end. It's going to be brilliant. Today we focus our steely gaze onto planet soccer and illuminate the science and technology, and in particular, the new tech that has come into play and might well be over the horizon in the coming years.

And who better to bring forward the science and check if the tech is up to snuff than our very own personal astrophysicist, Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson. Yes. Just to be clear, like most Americans, I'm less fluent in soccer than I am with other sports. So my role in this conversation will be as someone who is fluent in physics. Well, that's why you're here. Okay, thanks. I'm deflecting all soccer questions, specific soccer questions, to our other guests.

And speaking of that other guest, we have with us, loading up the professional viewpoint, former U.S. men's national team player and coach at the New York Cosmos, Aleko Eskandarian. Yes. Thank you, guys. Thank you. Thanks for being here, man. My pleasure. And Aleko, let me compliment you on working for a team that has the name Cosmos.

Just want to say. I figured you would like that. Aleko's got an interesting history. His father played for the New York Cosmos. Back in the day with Pele, Naskins, Beckenbauer, who I will bow down on my knees in front of football royalty. They are the gods of the game. So envious of your father, Alekko.

And Alekko is now working also with Major League Soccer. So he's got quite an important role to play in the future of the game. So what you're saying is Alekko is the flunky of the family. Oh, nice. In some ways, yes. You're saying that because you know that he's going to have to punch me to get to you.

I've got my distance. Yeah, thanks a lot. The configuration on stage here. Okay. I'm insulated. Continuing with the celestial theme, we'll take Aleko back to his days at the LA Galaxy. Oh, thank you. And one David Beckham.

Everybody in this room knows David Beckham. Everybody outside of this room. He played for the Galaxy, right? Yeah. So we have the Cosmos and the Galaxy. Whoa, I'm in the right place. Oh, my gosh. You see?

Oh, thank you. It's all coming together. No Red Bull here or whatever. No, no, no. So you know far more soccer than you're letting off. Apparently. Right. So for those of us who are familiar with David Beckham,

we know kind of the backstory. But there's one in the room here who knows exactly what it's like to play, to train, to work with. Gary, why do you have to embarrass me? Because that's just the way I am. All right, but we'll get to Aleko. You didn't talk about Joy. We'll get to Aleko soon enough. But Chuck, should we set up a clip?

Yeah, speaking of Beckham and bending it like Beckham, it was very cool to go back and find a clip of his first goal with the Galaxy, which was on a free kick. Yeah. And I think a wall of six players in front of him. And he actually did his signature bend it like Beckham. Was it signature yet? Yeah, at this

point, it was definitely his signature. He wrote his pen with him. So, why don't we take a listen to that? Yeah. He's got about six people in the wall covering the near side, Troy Perkins does. Kenny Bendit. Beckham! It's in the net! It's in the wall covering the near side, Troy Perkins does. Can he bend it? Beckham!

It's in the net! It's in the net! Do you believe it? Beckham can bend it. So anyone in here who doesn't know, that's almost 99.9% certain it's a right-footed, inside of the right boot, free kick, going to go curl right to left. But that's as much of the science as I know. Yeah, and I've got to tell you, when you look at that goal,

it's exactly what you know. And anybody who doesn't know, we have two professional soccer players here today because Gary O'Reilly is also a former soccer or footballer because he played in Crystal Palace and Tottenham, right? Yes. Tottenham. Tottenham, yes.

Tottenham is very abbreviated. Yeah, that's how you... Somehow doesn't sound so glamorous. You don't get to pronounce the British stuff. You don't want me doing that. But, yeah, so we have two professional soccer players here, and that is why Gary was able to point out the fact that just by listening that he could tell you exactly how that ball, which I watched the play.

That is exactly how. But what was so, I don't know, just stunning about it, is the amount of curve that he was able to put on the ball. I mean, if this were Major League Baseball, he would have immediately been ejected from the game. That's how much curve was on the soccer ball. An illegal amount of curve. Yes. Putting Vaseline on the ball.

Can you bring the science to what Beckham is doing and able to achieve there? Well, what's curious, I'm curious about a couple of things. To curve a ball is just to spin it while it's airborne. Yeah. So, of course, you want to be accurate, precise, as you do this.

So you need to know what you're doing, know how to aim it, know how much to curve it, know not to aim it, know how much to curve it, know not to kick it too slow or too fast because all of these factors influence how far it will go and how much it will curve. So presumably he's done a lot of homework that is in the case of an elite athlete a lot of practicing on exactly what that kick would do. Now what got me is here's the goalie standing in the middle of the goal

and watches the ball just sail off to his right into the net, almost like a tennis ace where he's not even diving for it. He was taken completely off. And what makes the curve so – I don't want to speak for the pros here, but if the ball is curving, it means you think it's coming towards you, but it's not. So you're ready to sort of extend your arms to punch it out of the way,

but then it just sails to your right. And you're taken completely off guard. And I just thought by now, all goalies would just huddle in the right side of the goal. You just... That's when you side of the goal. You just – That's when you aim to the left. Then aim to the left, maybe. So what happens – if you kick it with a spin, sort of –

there's something in physics called the right-hand rule. The right-hand rule. Yes, it is. The right-hand rule. It's not what you're thinking, Chuck. Okay. I hope you're taking notes. See, Neil knows me too well.

No, Chuck. Okay. I hope you're taking notes. See, Neil knows me too well. No, Chuck. Yes. So the right-hand rule is if you use your right hand and you curl your fingers in the direction the thing is spinning. Okay. Okay? And then your thumb points to the north pole of that object. Okay?

Okay. So north poles are uniquely unambiguously definable in space and across the universe and in all of physics. Okay. Okay. ambiguously definable in space and across the universe and in all of physics. Okay. So if you kick the ball in such a way that it is spinning with your right hand roll,

with your thumb up, okay, then the aerodynamics on the ball, because the right side of the ball is not going against the air and the left side of the ball is moving with the air as it goes through. Okay. So the forces are going to be different on each side of the ball for that simple reason. Now, it turns out there's something called a Magnus effect, which is a lot written about it. And so at the risk of making this more complicated than necessary- No, please do.

Chuck. Yes. You want to roll. Go for it. I mean, throw in a little calculus while you're please do. Chuck. Yes. You're on a roll. Go for it. Make it as complicated. I mean, throw in a little calculus while you're at it. Okay. So if the texture on the ball, if the ball surface is not perfectly smooth, then what

will happen is the texture on the ball will break up the airflow along the surface of the ball. Okay. Okay. Okay? In such a way that it will reduce what would otherwise be sort of a partial vacuum there. It will reduce that. Okay? All right.

Now, you lost me because- So, therefore, creating slightly more resistance. Exactly. Exactly. So, watch what happens. So, all balls that we play with- Okay. All right. Professionally. You got me back. You got me back. Yeah. Yeah. So all balls that we play with professionally have some kind of texture on them, be they golf balls or basketballs. Or wrinkles.

Go ahead. They all have some kind of texture. So when they spin, they will break up what would otherwise be a very smooth flow around the contact edge between the air and the ball. Got you. So now, so watch what happens. So you break this up on the part that's spinning into the wind. Okay.

Okay? It breaks it up very effectively. The side that's spinning back towards you with the wind has a lower air speed against the wind. There you go. Now I got it. Doesn't break it up as much. So the disruption actually reduces the air speed on the back side. Yes.

On the back side, that gives you less disruption, essentially more of a pulling force. Yeah, exactly. That's what I was going to say. So on that side, it's- It's actually pulling, and on the other side... It's pushing. So once you spin the ball...

Gotcha. ...then there's an air force that will push on the ball at right angles to its motion at all times. Okay, cool. Okay, so as it curves, it just keeps curving. Right. Gotcha. It'll just keep curving.

Yeah, because that never changes. It's never changing. That rotation never changes. That rotation is whatever. So as the direction changes... Right.... so does the direction that it's going. So that's why when you see these curves, it's like it keeps going. Right. It keeps curving.

Right. And it's like, whoa. That's cool. And so that ball that we saw that we didn't see it, we heard, that. This is radio. This is radio. Power of imagination. But let's just say we were in an abyss where there is atmosphere.

That ball would just keep curving no matter what. Except gravity is pulling it to the ground. Right. So it would have curved in a corkscrew. It would likely hit the ground before it comes around and hits you back in your face. Right. Okay, so Aleko, if you knew all of this before you ever bent a ball, would you have bothered? Or would you have...

And I got a question to put on top of that. Go on, then. It's his physics. Why is he the only one that anyone talks about bending the ball? See, that's a good point. It is. Because, in my opinion, everyone curves the ball, right?

Of course. Obviously, with Dave Beckman, he's not the only one in the world. There's plenty of talented free kick specialists who aren't as noticeable or famous as David is. Or as handsome. Or better looking. Which is probably the case. That's really what it is. Maybe a Spice

Girl element in there as well, but moving on. Did you date a Spice Girl? Married one. Excuse me, I didn't know. You all looking at me like I should know that. I know. I'm an astrophysicist, people. You should know that. But the editor, well she's a star. Okay.

But I think a lot of it is the shape of your foot too because for me, for example, I have a very powerful shot. And when I play. If you say so yourself. Yeah, yeah. So powerful means the ball moves fast. Yeah, yeah. I was able to generate more power on my shot than any player in the league when I was playing. shot and when i play if you say so yourself yeah yeah well i mean the ball moves fast yeah yeah i was able to generate more power on my shot than than any player in the league when i was playing

nice but i think a big part of that is i have a a very wide foot very very wide so i feel like i had a i don't have facts to back this up but i feel like i have a base that my sweet spot is maybe bigger than someone else's interesting whereas with Whereas with David, I don't know the shape of his foot. Just to be clear, just to clarify that. So you could have a sweet spot, but if your sweet spot doesn't hit the ball's sweet spot, it's not going anywhere. So if you have a wide sweet spot,

your margin of error is larger. So if you're running and the ball's moving and someone is bumping into you, you will have a higher likelihood of making a powerful kick under stress. So now, are you saying your powerful kick comes from, and tell me the difference please, is your powerful kick a free kick

or is that a powerful kick while you're in motion? Both. Or is it both? Yeah, it doesn't matter. I mean, it's not just the shape of my foot, obviously. Of course, I know. There'd be a whole lot of ratios between quadriceps, hamstrings, glutes that come in and the length of the lever.

Sometimes, did you have a long back lift or a short back lift? What's a back lift? Very short. So when you go to kick, the motion of the heel backwards from the ball. Sometimes you find guys… I had a very quick release, which made it difficult for the goalkeeper. Which is quite strange, because I played with one guy at Tottenham

whose back lift was minimal, and the power that he imparts into the ball is like, whoa. Yeah. That's also gotta be confusing for a goalie, too. Exactly, because the reaction time for the goalkeeper is that much less. It's like a pitcher, and the rate of you wind up to kick it,

and you don't wind up, and you kick it, and it goes faster than they would have judged. Right, exactly. Less time for the goalkeeper to react. So now, because I've never played soccer, all right, here's what I want to know. You talked about, you know, the part of your foot that you kick it with. You had it surgically altered. But it looks as though when you see guys, you know, I do wide soccer,

a lot of times it looks like they're kicking it with the side of their foot. They're in step. They're in step as opposed to the top of their foot. So what happens, and both of you can answer this for me, what is the difference when you kick with the top of your foot as opposed to your in step? Okay, so the thing that Neil was saying about how, you know, you've got a guy barging you, you've got someone running you down, or you've got a narrow opportunity where you see the goal. Aleko will talk to this because you're a striker, right? Absolutely. You are in tune, an intuitive balance.

You know you need to dial up a certain technique. So go through the techniques that you would use and the different parts of the foot you would use to execute. Yeah, absolutely. So go through the techniques that you would use and the different parts of the foot you would use to execute. Yeah, absolutely. During a match or during the flow of a game, there's different techniques that you're going to implement depending on what you want to achieve out of it. So if it's a long pass, I obviously can't use the inside of my foot to get a ball from here 40 yards down in the air. So it's a different technique. I'm going to use my instep to get the get underneath

the ball get some more distance on it more power on it it'll probably be backspin on it as well um whereas if i'm going to take a shot i want to power right through it i want to keep it low i'm not even worried about um i'm more more concerned about keeping it low and on frame because i have a target um if i have a barrier in front of me, so if that camera is in front of me and I have a teammate that's making a run behind, I have to now decide, okay, which way is that defender going to be moving? Which way do I want to curve it around him to be in the path of my teammate? So if my teammate's running this way.

Left to right. Left to right. Across your hand. And I want to play a ball in front of him, but there's a barrier in the way, I'm going to want to curve it maybe with the outside of my foot so it gets around the barrier, but still will come back in his path. So it's not too different than basketball. When you see LeBron James, sometimes he even puts spins on his...

On the bounce pass. Exactly, on his bounce pass. So Jason Kidd was the guy that was phenomenal at that. But an important point here. The basketball generally is not traveling fast enough through the air for this effect to matter in its airborne trajectory. Whereas in soccer, a kick goes 50 miles an hour. And so it turns out what I should have left, what I should have

exited that bit about was, here are things that matter for how much it's going to curve. What does the ball weigh? What is the density of the air that you're playing in? In one of the World Cups, there were different games. One was at sea level, one was at higher altitude. Was that in South Africa? When was that? 2010.

So the thinner air, sensibly, will have less effect on pushing the ball than thicker air will. Right. Because it's the air that's pushing the ball. So it's the thickness of the air, the air pressure, the weight of the ball, how fast you kick the ball. Gotcha. And also how long the ball stays airborne because then it has more time to curve. Right.

So if you keep the ball low, it's going to drop to the ground before it does what it's supposed to do. Interesting. And part of the curving is not just to fool the goalie at the risk of stating the obvious. You have a wall standing in front of you. Right.

And how far away are they, you? 10 yards. They're 10 yards, so... Allegedly. We got spray now. We got spray now for that. I never see a line there. I don't know.

So I looked at the angles on that, and they try to cut off your angle to the goal by where they stand. And if you can curve it, where they stand is irrelevant. Gotcha. You just put it around them. They'll jump.

There's all different ways. But they jump. You work out. They jump. You stick it underneath them. But that could jump sideways. They could jump up. No.

But the other thing is you take a... I just want to put that down. When you strike a ball to get some curvature on it, it depends how much, and Aleko can testify to this, how much of the ball you actually meet with the instep on your foot. If you want to curve it a little bit or a lot, if you're going for power. Anyway, look, we're going to take a break.

All right. And, you know, when we come back, I'm so glad that you brought this up because I actually have some balls that i actually went to a store and bought and thank you for clarifying to clarify it's just okay and uh i want you guys to take a look at them and then maybe break down just a little bit more of what we're talking about in terms of how these balls might react yeah so we're going to take a break all right see you shortly.

Welcome back to Playing With Science, where we today look at the beautiful game, soccer, football, call it what you wish, and the science, the technology, the technology of now and in parts to come, technology that will be available and coming to a game near you very soon. Right, Aleko, you have the brand new Telstar 18 ball in your hands. It's called Telstar? Yeah, I knew that was going to press your button. Telstar? I knew it was going to work for you. So we've got Cosmos, Galaxy, and now Telstar. Telstar is America's first communication satellite.

But this is Telstar 18. Okay, that's fine. By now, we would have 18. No, the original Telstar, Adidas Telstar ball was for Mexico 1970. The black and white hexagons, the classic that we all have in our mind. So this is the new version they're in. What do you notice? Don't tell me it's round, otherwise I'll get upset with you.

No, it's definitely a different contour when you feel it. I've never felt a ball like this, actually. I'm curious to see how it would move. All right. So, Neil, I'm going to give you this one, which is another Adidas ball. For those of you listening in black and white, it's green and black. Right. That was good, Gary.

Thank you kindly. Very good. What do you first notice are tactile when you pick and hold that ball? Well, this is the, I'm holding the ball that's sort of most familiar to people. It's a combination of hexagons and an intermittent pentagon to finish out the stitching. And so if you see this, you would obviously just say that's a soccer ball here in America. Other stitchings, you'd wonder what game is that for? ball here in America. Other stitchings, you'd wonder what game is that for?

So the surface of this, because of the stitching, it is part of the surface contouring of the ball that enables it to break up the air that goes across it. And without the stitching, by the way, if the ball were perfectly smooth,

here's the kicker. No pun intended. It was intended. If a ball were perfectly smooth without disrupting the boundary layer of air, the Magnus effect changes mathematical sign, and the ball curves in the opposite direction. Ah. So this is a smooth surface. This is smooth, but the stitching here is enough to...

But because the surface is smooth, it would reduce the Magnus effect by a corresponding amount compared with a similar ball that has a modeled surface, for example. Okay, so back in 2010 in South Africa, we had the Jubilani ball, which was hated by goalkeepers, loved by strikers like Aleko, because it became, at a certain speed, a knuckleball effect. So it would do all sorts of stuff that nobody quite could define. And it was more, the surface was smoother.

Now I'm going to give you this Telstar 18, which you will covet because of its name, I know. We're going to swap this over. We're swapping. You can tell me. Okay, so just a point about your smooth ball. Yeah. So what happens there is, if you kick the ball basically without spin, so a knuckleball in baseball is a ball thrown without spin.

And when it does not have a spin, then it's no longer spin stabilized. And what that means is it is at the mercy of any gust of wind that blows by. wind that blows by. And in the case of a soccer ball, yes, that's also the case. But unlike a baseball, soccer balls have valves which change the center of mass of the ball. And so I bet some kickers are aware of this and will place the ball relative to where the air valve is. Yeah, they do. Because that's an asymmetric point of the ball. So in a knuckleball, the ball, sorry,

in a non-spinning soccer kick, knuckleball equivalent. It's still a knuckleball in soccer, too. Oh, yeah, yeah. It's still a knuckleball. You're in safe ground. Even though it's not your knuckles that are doing it. Toe knuckles. So what's happening is the ball will move

according to its own center of mass, but the structure of the ball is not centered on its center of mass. Because there's a little more mass to one side than the other. Oh, okay, gotcha, because it's asymmetric. It's asymmetric, right? Gotcha.

So in other words, the ball will sort of wobble, in a sense, even though it is keeping its own center of mass on a straight line right okay because that's how the physics works but the side because the ball itself is not even it'll it'll wobble as it goes through the air uh and so that'll mess with a goalie for sure so those of you familiar with the cristiano ronaldo free kick that goes up down left right all in the same breath what he's doing is playing with the science. Pun intended, by the way, me saying that. He will kick through the aperture that's on the ball.

The deformation, am I right? Sure. Is then what plays, and that's what goalkeepers are sitting there looking at. That's why you see frozen goalkeepers quite often thinking, well, it's the roll of a dice. If I dive left, right, or stand still, whatever happens. And you could see that. As soon as they pick up the ball, they're looking for that little nozzle,

and that's when they're putting it down. So now I predict, based on this ball, this is a stunning ball, by the way, this, okay? The stitching is, it has more stitching than your classical hexagon pentagon ball. Although it's only got six panels. I don't care. No, it's, forget the panels.

I'm talking about how many places is there stitching where a perfect sphere dimples because there're stitching there there's way more stitching that i can see on this ball way more segments where that are surrounded by this and the surface is not smooth it's textured yes oh my gosh you want to talk about bending it like beckham this is a bendable ball. I predict in the next tournament that features this ball, the ball is going to look like a wiffle ball in a hurricane. Oh, no.

Wow. Bad day to be a goalkeeper. Bad day to be a goalkeeper. Once again, this ball is a goalkeeper's nightmare. This will be a goalkeeper's nightmare for sure, but unless the kickers have time to practice, their normal spin that they would put, that they've trained that would

aim and land in a particular place, could go completely wild on them. And that's the thing with the Jubilani ball that you mentioned. There were a lot of shots that were going 20 yards over the goal just because it was difficult for players to understand. It didn't get the curve that they wanted. Not always. Sometimes it will.

Bending left and right, depending on your left footed or right footed or on what side of the ball you kick it, that's sideways bending. You can bend it top and down. Yeah. With it, it has a backspin or a topspin. Correct. So a topspin, it'll dive quickly. A backspin, it'll sustain its trajectory longer

than what your brain sense tells you gravity should do. So it's not really rising. Well, yeah, correct. It's not. That's it. Correct. It's falling less. In baseball, just to use my American analogies here.

Do it. This is America, Jack. Okay. I'm hearing. The rising fastball that people talk about, if you look at the side analysis of it, it actually doesn't rise at all. It just doesn't fall as fast as your brain thinks it should.

So you feel as the batter like it's rising. And so the same would be true with the soccer ball. So I will look forward to what kind of soccer is played with that. That'll be a fan favorite ball for sure. It look forward to what kind of soccer is played with that. That'll be a fan favorite ball for sure. It's loaded to the strikers and you as a striker, how long will it take you or you think some of the World Cup stars to learn how to work that ball out? Where the sweet spot is, where they want to work it, how they're going to pass it, distance, 30 yards, 20 yards, 10 yards and strike a goal. How long do you think it'll take? Not too long.

They're good. I would say, yeah. In your day, you know. Days, weeks, years, never. Never. Choose the applicable out of that list. No, within a couple training sessions is usually all it takes. That's why you see teams try to get these balls in.

You know, if you're going to play a match and you're going to play with a ball that's different than the teams try to get these balls in you know if you're going to play a match and you're going to play with a ball it's different than the one you train with a team will always try to request at least two days before the match if it's deflated you know you can't so the thing is if this ball when if you go to hit it for distance say 60 yards 50 yards plus and this ball starts to change its flight path and become unpredictable teams will change the way they play they will not play longer diagonal passes. The game will become shorter and therefore quicker.

They will adapt to the ball because, by the way, the ball won't be changing. They'll have to change their style to accommodate what that does. And is that the roughest textured ball you've ever touched? It might be. The roughest I've ever seen.

Yeah. Yeah, it feels like what we analogy, not quite like the dimpling on a basketball, but it's a... No, it's like ridges. It's got a texture. I don't know how else to say it. It's rougher, though, than a soccer ball normally is.

See, the Brazuca had a texture to it as well, but it had a wavy kind of pattern. If you get this up close, you will see it's got that texture to it, but it is linear. There's no wave in the pattern. So that must, there's no way, because these balls get tested at NASA. There's no way they put that, oh, we'll just go straight this year and we'll don't worry.

It's a fashion thing. Well, I'll tell you this. Wait, is this really tested at NASA? Absolutely. Yeah, they're tested at Ames. Yeah, wind tunnels and things. Yeah. We got this.

Okay. I don't know if the- I was just going to say, I might find a better use for my tax dollars than testing. I think Adidas will have, FIFA will have paid for this. So, what's interesting here- Oh, good hands. Now that I'm looking more closely at this, there are two parallel panels. Yes.

There's one panel- Like a stripe. The stripes that go around its equator and above the pole and another one around the pole. So separated by 90 degrees. And in there are eight triangles. So I'm curious if the kickers will be able to find a way to spin the ball such that the parallel panels are operating against the air rather than some other dimension on this. That'll just be it. So I'm telling you now, you're a coach? I was, I was. Oh, not anymore? Oh, okay.

Okay, but don't worry, the secret's going to come out. I'm just telling you. I'm going to go back to playing after all this information. I'm telling you that if the ball spins along with these parallel panels, it will curve differently than if it is not. I'm just telling you that right now. The guys are going to work this out.

And if you're going to knuckleball it, watch out where the valve is and then make that work to your advantage. So, very cool. I can't wait to watch real folks play with this. We have a fan! We're looking forward to an exciting World Cup. I can't wait.

Before we take a break, Aleko, your favorite bit of technology that's come into the game since you became a coach, after you finished playing. Which would then affect your management of the team. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. GPS, heart rate monitors. Yeah.

Heat tracking. Wait, wait, where are the players going? Oh, this isn't during the game. Hey, dude, my GPS said you should be in the stadium. As a coach, if you can measure how hard someone's working, that just gives you added incentive to yell or not yell. Well, I love the data they now have on how far they've run in a game. Is that also a GPS thing?

Yeah. Okay, I love that. Between heart rate monitors and GPS, you're able to at least monitor how hard someone's working. You can use that here in the U.S. In MLS, you use that in-game. Yeah, yeah. MLS, Major League Soccer.

Major League Soccer, yes. So in European leagues, you're not allowed to use that because if I think my centre midfield player, we always pick on them, isn't working as hard and that's detrimental to my game plan, I can see on the data that that's the case. My eyes might be telling me one thing, but the data confirms that or denies that. So that's something that's an added bonus here in the US

that we don't have in other European leagues. Why don't you have it elsewhere? I think they want to take away the fact that you could have really accurate pinpoint. They're anti-technology. They have it. No, no, they're not anti-technology. I just think they're not keen to use it in-game,

but I think it will be coming. So suppose I'm just a really efficient player. Exactly. You can't measure IQ. Just because my heart rate isn't going up. Exactly. I'm working just as hard as anybody else. I just make it look-y.

And I know in advance where the wall's going to come. I don't have to chase it down. It comes by. I'm there when it got to me. And there's evidence of guys working too hard. Hey, I don't need you running this much for no reason without thinking. So there's a fine balance. That's where soccer IQ comes into play,

where you can't just base it all on numbers. It's more of reaffirmation of what you're already thinking. Soccer IQ, that's sick. I like that. Yeah, so with soccer IQ, we will take a break, and we'll all be doing questionnaires. And during the break, we'll come back and see which one of us doesn't have the best Soccer IQ.

And I'm holding my hand up right now. Right, we'll take that short break. This is Playing With Science, and we'll be back shortly. And we might have a special visitor by the sounds of it, yes. welcome back to playing with science we're enjoying and exploring science and technology in the beautiful game so neil you've got a question burning inside of you. Totally burning. Yes. Go for it.

What's up with you people to reinvent the ball every four years? What does that even mean? That's a very good question. I have the answer, but I'm going to get a lick of it. They've been playing football for a very long time. I've never heard anybody go, hey, we're going with Nerf this year. Nerf ball. Yeah, yeah. American football. Right. Right. Or baseball. go, hey, we're going with Nerf this year. Nerf ball. American football, right. Or baseball.

Hey, let's come up with some other shape. We need more stitches on this ball. That would be crazy in any other sport. Why is it just the thing you guys do? I don't know. I don't know the exact answer, but I think things are always improving. You look at jerseys, for example. Jerseys 20 years ago aren't the same as

they are now. And with the ball as well, I think there are minor improvements that are made. They just look like random. Somebody just dreamt it one night. I don't know that they're improvements. They look more like just simply like changes than improvements. Anyone else want to sing along with me? Must be the money. All right.

Selling the ball. Every four years, we got some commercial. Guy in the front row is going, I got you. I got you. You know what, Gary? You are absolutely right. And here's why. I just went shopping for soccer balls.

And I can't tell you the wall of different soccer balls that I had to navigate in order to figure it out. So now it's like buying Jell-O in the store. Yes. Every flavor. Yeah. navigate in order to So now it's like buying Jell-O in the store. Every flavor. So there was the Messe ball and there was a World Cup training soccer

ball and there was I forget the other one that's oh gosh, it's an MLS ball but it looks like Jubilani but it's instead of like the four it's only got like two little curvy panels so you're absolutely right it's a it makes there okay so you touched on jerseys

what about the future of jerseys where do you think it could go and then are we just talking about clothing here yes uniforms clothing what a soccer player's uniform could be like in the future before we do that because i, because I'm uninitiated, how have jerseys changed? Okay, so go back many, many years and imagine me as a small child. We're still just talking about clothing here. Yeah.

I thought we were talking about sports. We're getting there. Clothing as in a soccer uniform. Heavy cotton. You sweat and run around and it becomes three pounds heavier if you're lucky Then you go through some other that poundage was in your body to begin with So you were carrying that weight around at the beginning of the game now?

It's on the outside, but in either case you weighed that much before just want to be clear that water didn't come from space, okay? When you walked out on the field at the beginning of give you have this three pounds on me Let me get rid of it. Unless it's raining. Unless it's raining, though. I just got detention, didn't I? I really just got detention. You're just saying it right.

Don't run around in sweaters. Oh, now I'm carrying around this heavy thing because it's wet. But the truth is it feels icky. It's icky. It's the ick factor. So you go through nylon and synthetic fabrics, and now you get fabrics that breathe. Nylon is synthetic. Yes, I know, but then you get synthetic fabrics

that are able to develop and breathe, so it wicks away the sweat that you once had inside that's now outside. Did I say that right? Thank you. You're good. Moisture wicking. Yeah.

So now, where are we headed? Where do you think jerseys will go? And we'll kind of sort of pick up some threads. Well, I think right now we were talking a bit about the whole GPS and heart rate monitor, that whole piece. At the moment, guys are wearing devices almost in like sports bras, and they have it hooked up. If you watch a match right now, if you see guys who have almost a little device sticking out from like the back of their neck or their spine, there are these little GPS devices, and that's how –

It's about the size of a small cell phone if you can imagine that now what they're saying now is you're going to get the the coming forward of intelligent fiber nanotechnology where all of that sort of cell phone size equipment that's stuck between your shoulder blades is going to be minimalized into the fabric also while you're watching your favorite team their uniform will change color. Imagine that. They have a shirt sponsor, right? Some of the most expensive real estate in the world would be at Real Madrid, Barcelona, the big guys.

Imagine if they could change as well. Oh, they already have that. And believe me, that's going to happen not just in the sport that is most uniquely suited to have that happen is, of course, soccer. What will happen is it's going to be like NASCAR. So you know how on NASCAR you have all these different medallions on the car. So they'll have a band across the shirt, and that band will change advertisements during the game. Yeah.

And if you ever wondered what it's like to be Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Aleko. There'll be cameras in the jersey. The fibers, like fiber optics, right? They will be there. Now, the TV companies and the clubs. Make sure you don't put your shorts on inside out, buddy. No! So this is now, as a viewer, as a fan.

On the center field camera, what's that? So you can imagine, as a fan. Camera center field camera What's that? So you can imagine As a fan Camera's pointing The wrong way You can dial up Which player In the cameras you want

Or you might have Other options Where you can have Chuck to wear his shorts Inside out It just depends What you want to dial up So you could be in the game

By the technology Of the jersey Absolutely Okay fine So now I see Why we're talking About clothing Thank you

So will players embrace this? Probably not, to be honest with you. But do they have a choice? Do they have a choice? Well, when it comes to sponsors and all that stuff, probably not. But at the end of the day, as a player, you want to be as light as possible when you're out there. Oh, these things work. I mean, if you think about a camera on the side of the field or in the stadium, very different.

This is fiber optic. Right. But even if it's two ounces, players will use it as an excuse. So that's why I couldn't make that run. Okay. Speaking of jerseys, what's this thing where they run off the field and take off their shirt? Like, what is that? Oh, you win a score?

If I looked like any of these guys, I'd be taking off my shirt in a frozen food section of the shop right now. Are you kidding me? What's up with that? With trading jerseys, you mean? No, no. It means when you score a goal. Oh. Yeah, what's up with that?

Oh, that's celebration. Yeah. That's you about to get a yellow card. I am so desperate to get a yellow card, I will now run around with my shirt off. Is that a yellow card offense? Yeah, absolutely. Really?

Yeah, that's a cheap way to get one. Okay. Really cheap way. I didn't know that. Even if you look like Christian. So that's like the end zone dance. You're not supposed to do that in American football. See, but they changed that now.

Now they've encouraged the end zone dance as long as it isn't taunting. Plus, it's only you. You can't get the whole kick line going, right? Actually, you can now. They just changed that rule this year. Okay, so we get the telemetric data. And goals don't, I'm sorry. Yeah, go.

Let me just say this. Goals do not happen a lot in soccer. Damn it. If a guy wants to take off his shirt, he should be able to take off, if he wants to wave his penis at the crowd, he should be able to do it. How often do goals happen?

Okay. That's crazy. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Go ahead. Go ahead. Now I know why you wanted that camera inside the shirt. Yeah.

So soccer with a parental guide. So when we get to the telemetrics and we're going to have this layout. I can't get that image out of my head now. Think harder. So it shouldn't be hard for you. So what are you looking for? What are the telemetrics that mean most to you as a coach when you're reading it saying, hey, I like this?

What really is the most important factors? Yeah, I mean, I think as a coach, the one thing we're talking about the future, injury prevention. That to me is the biggest thing, and that's where I see technology going. And that's what a lot of this data is used for. I know some of the top clubs in Europe, they monitor down to the distance cover, the toll on the body, and

that's what determines whether, hey, we gotta give this guy a break next week or- Do you have the red flag sort of thing? Yeah, he's got another three games in him at this toll on his body, and after that, it might break down. It's like in baseball where they count your pitches and they decide when to take you out and when to put you back in the rotation. Soccer's so difficult because there's so many different variables because not any two games are alike because the score changes how much input you're putting out on the field. The conditions change.

The surface changes. So, you know, if it's a grass field that doesn't hold the water well and it's raining, now after a game, you feel like you played two matches even though you just played one. So there's a lot of different things that go into it, and I think collecting all this data will help prevent injuries. So when do the injury acting lessons, when are those given? Ah, flopping.

Oh, did I? Gamesmanship. I love it. Somebody had to go there. No, no, that's fine. So whoever has our Telstar 18, that has been constructed to benefit strikers. Therefore, FIFA, the world governing body,

are looking to get advantage in, or at the feet, I should say, of the strikers. Now, they won't like the flopping aspect of it. So if you flop dramatically and fail to get an Oscar, but should have got an Oscar, right? Flop means fall, feigning, injuring. Yeah, simulation, as it would be called. Don't be surprised if players get three-game bans.

Three-game bans? Yeah, do it. Now you see how clever you are. Just go draconian. Go very hard on it. I don't know what that means. I'm sorry. So he's saying that the league should, if people are flopping,

then you get a three-game suspension. It's like, hey, man. A three-game ban. Yes. Oh, I thought this was a new thing you wear on your wrist. Wrist band. A three-game ban. No, no.

A three-game ban. Thank you. So what's in place right now in our league, in MLS, is there's a disciplinary committee where they review all these plays of simulation embellishment, and there's a monetary fine. Simulation embellishment? Yeah. You can't call it acting. Because there's a monetary fine. Simulation embellishment? Yeah. You can't call it acting.

Because there's a difference between... It's not acting. There's a big difference that most people that haven't played don't understand. There's a difference between selling a foul that you've been fouled versus completely faking it and you haven't been touched and you're trying to fool the referee. And so I guess they would use, like, what, instant replay?

Because I think that's a little dangerous. I mean, if you were fouled, even though you're selling that, I mean, if there was an offense, you should be able to have that credited. So they're magnifying the effect. Right, and that happens in every sport. I mean, I don't care what it is. Referees are human. Referees are human.

You see it happen all the time. So I'm just saying, like, how would you go about confirming that? By the way, with AI, we can fix that. Okay. What's that? Okay. Referees are human. We have ways.

Yeah. Everyone in here has heard of Google Specs, right? Google Specs, yes. Google Specs. No, I haven't. I'm sorry. Google Glass. Oh, Specs.

Google Glass. Google Glass. So if the referee's view of an incident is obscured, imagine he's got this very clever eyewear on that dials up immediately, an instant replay, as you called it, Chuck, of that same incident from another angle that is very clear. Would you be happy with that?

You can't hide an offense. Absolutely. We're seeing the implementation of video review now, but that's where the game is headed, is human error, whether it's the referee, the assistant referee, the linesman. That's the difference between winning and losing a game. So if you can help avoid errors made and video can come into play, I think everyone is all for it as long as it's implemented properly. Because, again, there's still a human operating that machinery. But it reduces it.

It does, it does. But things are so subjective where, you know, if I see a... You and I could be watching a game we've both played, and there could be a guy who goes down the box, and I might say, penalty, and you might say, no, it's not a penalty. So there's always going to be differing opinions, but at least with video review, like you said, it eliminates the doubt. Could it be that unlike some sports, such as baseball, which is still using wood and leather and pine tar, and it's one of the least touched sports by technology, that soccer, because you get a new ball every four years and the rules are just whatever anybody thinks up

to make the ball. Harsh. Harsh. That you might be ripe for a complete technological revolution in the sport. That'd be cool. I can't see a complete technological revolution. I mean, we now have goal line technology

where the goal is inundated with camera angles. Sensors and things. Okay. Camera angles that will, such high speed. I've read somewhere like 500 frames a second, which is like really complaint. That's blown my head really. But that is definitive. That's within about two or three millimeters accuracy.

Okay. So that, that's happening. That's the Hawkeye technology. Just to be clear, if you have that many frames per second, then each frame essentially is accuracy. Okay. So that, that's happening. That's the Hawkeye technology. If you have that many frames per second, then each frame essentially stops the ball in midair.

Yeah. And at a lower frame rate, it doesn't stop the ball. The ball is blurred. And if you're trying to decide whether something crossed the line or doesn't or didn't,

and you have an image of a, if you have a blurred image of the ball, you cannot adjudicate that with precision. So you need a high frame rate. Thank you. No, no, no.

That's beautiful because now I understand exactly why there's 500 frames a second and what the outcome is because you need to know. In the early days of tennis, before we had high frame rate replays and the ball in tennis is going 100 for men it's 130 miles an hour. So the ball comes down, it bounces so fast

and they try to show that in slow motion, and the whole bounce is a blur. Everything is a blur. And you're just, is it, I don't know, can we? But without that we would have never had John McEnroe. Come on! Yeah, so technology gets rid of a-hole behavior. Aleko, is there something that you would like to see

change in the game for positive for both fans and for players or just for fans whichever way you want to work that I think everyone that plays the game that watches the game they want to enjoy watching it so if you can eliminate like we talked about the diving or

the bad calls the things that people get so infuriated with I would be all for that but But at the same time, I do enjoy the human aspect of it. I do enjoy that there's going to be curveballs thrown your way that you have to deal with in the course of a match. There are no timeouts. The game is flowing.

Once they got rid of the no tie rule, how's that been going? Where you swap off kicks? Oh, shootout. Well, that's only in tournaments. In league play, a tie is still a tie. Okay.

So the reason I ask is because, of course, in hockey, they had a similar issue, low-scoring games, tie games. They had the same thing as shootouts. Then they invoked shootouts. Was that generally welcomed or not? So I think in soccer, and again again i grew up in a soccer family so i'm probably a soccer purist you appreciate a tie if you're playing against a a tough team on the road and you bunker down and you put in a a solid effort to shut them down and they don't beat you

that's a well-deserved see and that's why soccer is not as popular in America. Because we are like, you did not win. So the logic is, do you know the way the coaches apply the logic? The best headline ever was when they ended the All-Star game in a tie. And was it the New York Post? They said, there's no tying in baseball. There's no tying in baseball. There's no tying in baseball. So the logic is, we didn't lose the game.

We lost the penalty shootout. And that's how coaches put a positive spin to keep the morale of the team unit together. Well, penalty shootouts are coin toss, to be honest with you. Well, no, there is science. But that's another show. That's a whole new show. Guys, that's it for us playing with science. Thank that's another show. That's a whole new show. Guys, that's it for us, Playing With Science.

Oh, really? Thank you to our audience. It's been fabulous. Thank you, guys. Thank you to Aleko. Eskandarian. To Neil deGrasse Tyson. The good doctor, Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Of course, from Gary O'Reilly, myself, and Chuck Nice. This has been Playing With Science. We look forward to your company soon. Welcome back to Playing With Science and our Planet Soccer special. And as promised, the bonus segment at the beginning of the show with the professor Eric Goff from Lynchburg College, Virginia. Professor, you have become, I've decided, a world expert in the Adidas Telstar 18 ball because I don't think anyone else has investigated it as thoroughly as you. So how are things going with that? Are you still progressing or have you concluded?

We've had our paper published on the Telstar 18 comparison to Brazuca, and we've been answering a lot of media inquiries about the ball. And I should point out, as of the 1st of July, Lynchburg College has been renamed University of Lynchburg, so we'll be using a different moniker from here on out. This means I have to salute. If you like. Okay, might just do that, make it even more formal. Right, let's not ignore what has happened in the last week or so some rather cool no doubt in the adidas marketing machine sent a telstar 18 ball up to the cosmonauts in space in the space station and let them have a go what on earth in terms of physics happens in space as opposed to here on earth yeah i mean what not on earth right um so that the the space station uh footage was

fascinating and uh i mean if you're going to be a scientist you got to love to play i mean that's a prerequisite to being a good scientist and you know there's always this what you, if you're going to be a scientist, you've got to love to play. I mean, that's a prerequisite to being a good scientist. And, you know, there's always this, you know, if you ever had the question, what would it be like to kick a soccer ball up while you're orbiting the Earth? If you get to answer that, you're doing good science. So kudos to those on the ISS for actually pulling it off and filming it for us. So going back to the World Cup, let's go back to the basics. In terms of Brazuca, we are looking at a completely different ball for Telstar 18,

not just in color, but in the number of panels, the way that they're assembled, etc., etc. So if you could break that down, that would be ideal. So Brazuca, I'm holding one here in my hand uh was used in 2014 in brazil and it had six panels and it had these very uh nice circuitous uh groove shapes that held the panels together through thermal bonding and it was a much improved ball over the 2010 ball that was used in south africa the javolani the much hated i believe it's become officially known as the much hated javolani trying to be kind of poor javolani but yeah it was a it was a pretty pathetic ball but the uh brazuca was a mass improvement and when you reduce the number of panels on a ball you run the risk of it becoming

too smooth so with the eight panels on Javalani, when you go to Brazuca, it has two fewer panels. Well, they made up for that by having the seams much more circuitous shapes around the ball, and this total seam length was 68% longer than it was on Javalani. So that added the roughness to the ball and what it did was it pushed the drag crisis to a lower speed the big problem with the javolani was it had its drag crisis right in the middle of where corner kicks and free kicks are made and that drag crisis is where the flow on the ball changes from this turbulent flow to laminar flow as you're slowing it down and it caused the drag force to to rocket upwards the brazuca didn't have that problem and the telstar 18 also has six panels it is a very different topology the panels have very different shapes and in fact for this

particular ball the total seam length here is actually 30 percent longer than it is on brazuca so because of that length difference and is it a similar depth in terms of the way that the panels are bonded together because you've got you've got if you imagine a sort of valley running through or around the ball and but the lengths of those areas what impact will that have on the flight of the ball as far as you're concerned from testing? So when you add the seam length like that, you run the risk of making the ball a little bit too rough. You're pushing the drag crisis back to too low a speed. So what Adidas did was they actually made the width of the grooves a little narrower than the ones on brazuca and a little shallower than on brazuca and that the texturing on the panels is actually a little shorter than it is

on brazuca and you can feel it when i hold these two balls up in my hands i can tell that the textures on brazuca are taller than the ones on uh the telstar 18 so it's like that compensated for the added seam length, and they have roughly the same drag crisis right now. So what they've done is, even though they've altered certain components of the structure, you will expect that they will perform

in much the same way. That's right. We've done a whole slew of trajectory testing on the balls to see what would happen under models of various kicks. And it turns out for the really high speed kicks, so we're talking about well over 60 mile an hour launch kicks, the Telstar 18 could go about 8 to 9% shorter distance than the Brazuca did for the same type of kick. It has a slightly larger drag coefficient at high speeds than Brazuca, but from an aerodynamic point of view, given the very different shapes of the

panels and the textures and the seams and all that, they're very similar aerodynamically. So if we then concentrate on the style of play, because Jubilani, if you were to kick the ball during free play on a on a longer distance the flight of the ball was so unpredictable and players hated it so what happened was it seemed to suit the teams that played the much shorter style of game are we going to see any sort of effects to the style of play with this telstar 18 um i don't i don't think you're going to see that much change in the ball. There's a slight, as I said, a slight reduction in the range for a high-speed kick, but that's going to be something that's noticed by the goalkeepers who are going to be kicking the ball way down the pitch. They

might notice that compared to Brazuca, it's going a little less far. But as far as style of play, I mean, you know, of course, who's going to win in 2010 when you got a Jabulani ball that's acting like a beach ball in the air? You're going to get Spain winning because they're, you know, their short passing game is what dominated that World Cup. Yeah, exactly. I'm just wondering, I mean, it's been recorded. There are players and I mean, the fastest ever recorded strike of a ball in a professional game was something like 130 miles an hour in Portugal. And we have found players hitting the ball at close to 100 miles an hour from free kicks or on volleys. How much will Telstar 18 be affected or maneuver if it's hit with that sort of speed and that sort of power again it's going to have a slight reduction in the range this could be you know eight to nine

percent reduction in the range when you kick something that fast i mean the drag force initially is going to be well over the weight of the ball you know the weight of the ball is nearly a pound and when you're kicking something close to 100 miles an hour like that, the drag force is going well beyond the weight of the ball. So it is really feeling that air resistance as soon as it's being kicked. I mean, obviously you're going to be able to kick the ball way down the pitch, but I think the players who are capable of reaching speeds like that are going to notice a slight range reduction.

But aerodynamically, as far as what are going to notice a slight range reduction but aerodynamically as far as what's going to happen with the knuckling of the ball the kind of the wobbling with no spin it's going to be similar to what brazuca was um we've seen what initially in the in 1970 was known as banana kick the curling free kick will telstar 18 be more inclined to make that happen or will it fly a little bit truer or will we as we've decided already with just kicking with force it's very similar to Brazuca I think it's going to be similar to Brazuca I mean the the aerodynamic properties that we've measured on the ball show that the different flow types around the ball are very similar to bazooka. And when you start spinning the ball, of course, you lose the knuckling effects because the surfaces are changing with respect to the air coming over.

But the idea behind a banana kick is, you know, when you kick that ball with a lot of spin like this, if this is the front part of the ball going in you know away from the player that kicked it if it's spinning this way that boundary layer of air gets whipped off the back and it gets moved in the direction of the spin so you know in the direction my fingers pointing here to the left so you can get a lot of players that are on corner kicks that are purposely going to be kicking that ball trying to you know have it steering toward a goal so that the, you know, teammate can head it into the goal or even away from the goal. You often see that too. So I think a lot of people, and it's funny, players will, if you didn't tell them which ball was which, they would notice differences within a number of balls. They would even tell you

that one ball felt lighter or heavier than another. And then they would watch and see how the ball reacted in certain ways that they kick it, pass it short, pass it long, pass it media range, hit with power, all the different array of techniques they can bring towards their game. Are we going to see anything spectacular, different with this ball for Russia 2018? I don't think you're going to see quite the change that you saw from 2010 to 2014. Certainly not from the team Geist that was used in Germany in 2006 to 2010. I mean, I don't think the FIFA wants to roll out a ball that is so drastically different from what the players are used to just to play with them and see something kind of spectacular

i mean you could almost make a standard within making us i mean if you look at the rules in soccer really it's just the size of the ball and the weight that are specified i think a better specification well i shouldn't say a better, another specification would be to add a drag curve. I mean, you don't want to make a mistake like with Javolani and have a drag crisis at too high a speed. You want to be able to give the players something that has a familiarity to it. But like you said, if you're at the elite level, you're going to notice slight changes. I mean mean it's impossible for these two balls to fly exactly the same and the players what if they find a unique quality that the ball say like jubilani did they will find a way to utilize that the players will find a way to make it beneficial

for them for sure i mean look at honda's free kick for japan in 2010 i mean that ball did not have much spin on it at all, but that poor goalkeeper looked like he was trying to bat a beach ball coming at him. I mean, you know, you can definitely do things with these balls once you get a feeling for them. I mean, a professional tennis player is going to notice just a couple of pounds change in the tension in the racket. So they're going to notice these things. You know, I mean, a baseball player, you shave off a tiny amount on a hand on the grip of a bat. They're going to notice that. Professor, thank you.

It's been interesting to talk to you. Professor Eric Goff for the soon to be University of Lynchburg, talking about this year's World Cup football, the Adidas Telstar 18. Hope you've enjoyed Planet Soccer. Look forward to your company on playing With Science very, very soon.