Soccer

The 2014 FIFA World Cup Ball Will Be Called The “Adidas Brazuca”

Well, really the “adidas Brazuca” because “adidas” is annoying and lowercase. The 2014 World Cup will be played in Brazil, and Brazilian fans were given the opportunity to vote on the name of the ball to be used during the games. According to FIFA.com, 70 percent of a Brazilian vote involving more than one million people picked the “adidas Brazuca” as the 2014 World Cup ball.

Here’s more:

“adidas, the FIFA World Cup Official Match Ball supplier since 1970, took inspiration from elements of Brazilian culture to come up with a shortlist of three possible names for the ball. In addition to the eventual winner Brazuca, there were two more options – Bossa Nova and Carnavalesca.

For the past three weeks, Brazilian football fans have been voting for their favourite name in their thousands. This is the first time that fans have been directly involved in the naming of the FIFA World Cup ball.

The informal term “brazuca” is used by Brazilians to describe national pride in the Brazilian way of life. Mirroring their approach to football, it symbolises emotion, pride and goodwill to all.”

Ya see? adidas made FIFA start a sentence with a lowercase letter. And I just did it, too. Our EIC Dan Fogarty is cringing, somewhere.

The real delight of all of this, however, besides “Brazuca” sounding like bazooka (note: pronunciation of “Brazuca” is completely unconfirmed), is this gem of a quote from FIFA Secretary General Jérôme Valcke.

“I’m sure that the Brazuca ball will go down in history together with other iconic FIFA World Cup balls.”

Hah. Balls.

[FIFA]

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