Here it is! The ball that will inevitably cause some sort of sh*tstorm come June — it’s the Adidas Telstar 18, the official ball of the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia. Pep Guardiola already hates it. Goalkeepers are already complaining that it dips, dives, ducks and dodges too much.
258 days. That’s how long we’ve got to wait until June 14, the day when Russia will kick off the 2018 World Cup at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow. The buildup to the world’s greatest sporting event is gaining traction as we’ve now confirmed eight of the 32 finalists, and we’ll know a whole lot more come October.
While the grueling qualifying process has been the focus of everyone’s attention, the sporting outfitters tasked with designing the threads on fleek in Russia have been churning through the design process.
The summer of 2000 saw the likes of England’s David Beckham and Steven Gerrard, France’s Zinedine Zidane and David Trezeguet and the Netherlands’ Patrick Kluivert all converge for the year’s marquee footballing event: UEFA Euro 2000.
Back in 2010, MLS signed an eight-year deal with Adidas worth $200 million. It was seen as a watershed moment for the league, signed just years after an eight-year contract with ESPN.
In 2014, the broadcast deal for MLS changed dramatically when ESPN, Fox Sports and Univision signed new agreements totaling around $90 million per-season, five times more than the previous deal.
For years now, dedicated fans and wanna-be designers have been mocking up jerseys that are infinitely better than what Nike, adidas and the rest continually roll out. It’s the fans that pay around $100 for these annual threads, but it often seems like jersey manufacturers go out of their way to mess things up.
“You guys always wear vertical stripes? Okay, we’ll make them horizontal.”
“The jersey is always just predominately red? Okay, we’ll throw in some black, white, yellow and blue for good measure.”
Adidas has done it again. After releasing the X and the Nemeziz, adidas fired more shots at Nike without even needing to reload. The latest cleats from adidas are true beauties and have newly developed technology that the older F50 Tunit boots first pioneered.
Adidas is rolling out their latest line of cleats before the 2017 UEFA Champions League Final in Cardiff, so expect to see a lot of commercials detailing the new Nemeziz,