Major League Soccer gains a quadrennial distinction of being the first professional league to use the newest World Cup match ball.
It’s happening again, as MLS will be the first to use a version of the Brazuca, the adidas competition ball that was unveiled last week, one that serve as the official pelota for next year’s World Cup in Brazil.
(It will also be the starting point for countless conversations involving properties and surface, and how the ball moves, etc. At some point, it’s just a ball … but that won’t stop the interwebs from doing its thing, now will it?)
Major League Soccer has just revealed its own 2014 match ball, based on the Brazuca. The big bang of the drum here, however, is that MLS will become the first league in the world to play the Brazuca.
It happened this way in 2006 with the adidas Teamgeist and once again in 2010 with the adidas Jabulani. (You remember that one, the ball with the magical, mystically elusive properties – or so the early, over-baked reports seemed to indicate.)
It’s not about Major League Soccer as a fitting, initial testing ground. Rather, it’s just about the calendar. That, plus the fact that MLS is an adidas associated league, one that happens to begin its season just a few months before the World Cup. (So, before the World Cup, but after the ball has been designed and released by adidas.)