Why is Adidas Telstar 18 in news?« Back to Questions List

Telstar 18 designed by Adidas will be used in the 2018 FIFA world cup football event to be held by Russian Federation.  Football world cup or FIFA world cup is the most looked after sport even in the world. The popularity of football world cup exceeds Olympics, the other major global sport event.  One tenth of the entire population of the world gets attracted to the once in four year FIFA event. Naturally, the football used in the matches to get huge attention and hence Telstar 18 is in center stage. 

Adidas is the second largest sportswear manufacturer in the world after Nike. The multinational company that was stated in 1924 has its headquarters in  Herzogenaurach, Germany.  Adidas has a long standing association with FIFA world cup.  It is a FIFA Partner. Adidas has been the official match ball supplier of FIFA world cup since 1970. Telstar 18 is the name given by the company for the football being supplied for the 2018 event. The Adidas Telstar 18 thus becomes  the official match ball of the World Cup event.

Football super hero Lionel Messi officially launched the Telstar 18 in an event held in Moscow on November 9, 2017.  The event was attended by the evergreen heroes of the game like Zinedine Zidane, Kaká, Alessandro Del Piero, Xabi Alonso and Lukas Podolsk. 
Telstar 18 resembles the Telstar, Adidas’s first world cup match football used in the 1970 event. It derived the name due to its resemblance to Telstar communication satellite. The name itself is a combination of two words  "television" and "star." The Telstar used in 1970 was the first football that used a black and white pattern. This was introduced to enhance the quality of telecast as majority of televisions in use was black and white.  The Telstar had 32 panels stitched together. Telstar 18 has only six textured panels which are seamlessly glued together and thus eliminates any stitching.  The seamless surface is expected to aid more predictable trajectory and better touch control. It has come out successful in all tests by FIFA on weight, rebound and water absorption. 

Other features of the Telstar 18 are given below. 

The cover surface of Telstar 18 is made up of  83% TPU / 17% polyester .  The bladder is of latex.  The football contains an embedded chip compatible with NFC enabled devises.  It will not add any benefits to the players but you can you download exclusive content on your smartphone.  The football is available in White, Black and Metallic Silver.  It is reported that the Telstar 18 is produced by Forward Sports in Sialkot, Pakistan. 
 

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