For those new to the international game, you'll quickly learn that footballers, whose skills vary wildly from one position to the next, all share one magnificent trait: the ability to blame poor performance on inanimate objects.
When Martin Tyler stated for ESPN that Robert Green's horrific gaffe against the United States would have rated poorly by schoolboy standards, many were quick to suggest that it must have been that pesky ball, scourge of keepers everywhere, that caused the goal.
Jabulani may mean "rejoice" in the Zulu language, but in the shell-game language of assigning post-match blame, it merely means "Don't look at me."
To Green's credit he seemed to want no part in the usual game of passing the buck, that most famous of all World Cup side-shows. Given the gravity of his error, that was admirable and it shows a mental toughness that I think will allow him to shrug off the error and go about his work.
Of course, blaming the ball for your team's poor performance after the fact is the stuff of amateurs. The real experts know you have to make a show of the ball before the game is even played, as the Mexican national team is doing by having their keepers train with American Footballs instead of the World Cup ball in practice.
Whether anyone suggested that the closest approximation to the World Cup ball might be, you know, an actual World Cup ball instead of an oval piece of leather is probably beside the point, the Mexicans have their ready-made excuse should their keepers live up to the current standard of play at this tournament.
The most common touchstone for American viewers and journalists about the problems with the ball (as for many it's probably the only game they've watched) has been their fortunate goal against England, though how a round ball can be said to have a "tricky flight" when it is hit so tamely it bounces twice before it even reaches the goalkeeper is beyond me.
The ball has always been the most nefarious of World Cup participants, though. The ball is as much a marketing tool as it is a part of the game as the design, made iconic simply by its association with the World Cup, is applied across several different versions of the ball, ranging in price from $20 to the $150 USD for the official version and, of course, available at your local retailer or wherever devious sporting equipment is sold.
This happens every four years as a new ball is designed and released to a public waiting to insult it as an affront to the game. Never mind that every single criticism lobbed against this ball was levied at the ball Adidas designed for the 2006 World Cup, which produced plenty of long range goals that didn't require a wonky flight to beat the goalkeeper:
What is usually overlooked is that the ball has been available since the beginning of the year commercially and certainly was made available to the national teams well in advance of that. There's no excuse for blaming the ball for having unusual flight characteristics, especially since the ball has been used not only since March in the MLS, but also in the Africa Cup of Nations and the Argentine Torneo Clausura this past year.
The ball, like every ball, flies in unique ways, but there's no reason a team playing for the World Cup shouldn't have taken ample time to learn what those ways are and adapt to them, especially if you've already participated in a tournament or league that uses the ball.
In reality, Jabulani is going to fly based on a number of different factors. Chief among them is going to be altitude, as several of the stadiums sit at sea level while others are more than a mile above that, with no middle ground between them.
The ball is already designed to reduce drag, but the stadiums themselves create an environment where those characteristics will be enhanced. Still, scoring as a whole is down for the World Cup and is bound to increase dramatically as nerves settle down, Jabulani aside.
That's the real key here: nerves. Players in the World Cup tend to play timid, especially in their opening matches. Most teams are content to play out a 1-1 draw rather than chase the game. Rather than be adventurous in an unfamiliar environment, most teams would rather remain disciplined and compact and not attack wildly.
As teams get a second game under their belt and have their destinies more clearly laid out, they'll be forced to go out and win games and we'll truly see the World Cup we've all been waiting for.
Either way, for those of you new to this game, I say: welcome to the World Cup, where if your team loses the only thing more crooked than the refs is the flight of the ball.
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