The
2014 World Cup in Brazil made headlines all over world. The most popular, of
course, was the embarrassment of the ‘Samba Boys’ at home in the hands of an
efficient German ‘machine’. We need not over emphasize this point. Other
headlines included various demonstrations by Brazilians against the development
of extensive infrastructure for the tournament at the expense of other
programs, the rumours of Jennifer Lopez not performing at the opening ceremony,
collapse of a bridge in Belo Horizonte, and so on. Among the headlines was the
fact that the 2014 World Cup in Brazil was definitely the most technologically
advanced football tournament we have ever seen. Everywhere you looked, there
was technological amazement. If we start with basics, the soccer ball, Brazuca.
The ball was made up of six propeller-shaped polyurethane panels being thermally
bonded together to ensure smooth gliding in the air. The purpose of the design
was to overcome the challenges of the Jabulani, the ball used at the 2010 World
Cup tournament in South Africa.
With most of the cities at the coast
line of Brazil, the weather during the tournament was bound to be warm and
humid. The clothing vendors went all out to provide players with kits that had
a cooling mechanism. For the home team Brazil, Nike
combined technical fabrication with thermo-regulation. The team’s jersey had 56 per cent more airflow than previous versions.
It was composed of 94 per cent polyester and just 6 per cent cotton thus giving
the players a comfortable feel of cotton, but the heat regulation properties of
polyester. Adidas on the other hand, had designed a series of pre-cooling
sleeves and vests that can be worn by players before and after matches, or
during training. The garments were cooled in a freezer before being worn by a
player, bringing their temperature down over 15 to 20 minutes. In some matches,
the weather was so harsh that there were water break. Technology can only go so
far, right?
Apart
from the players, the referees were technologically advanced. The World Cup referees
had access to foam, water-based, vanishing spray that will be carried in
special belts. This particular brand new feature
of the World Cup impressed most the football fans. This was the first time it
was used in the tournament, having been used prior at the under-20 World Cup.
Every time there was a foul, the referee would first circle the ball using the
spray, walk nine meters and spray a straight line where the ‘wall’ of players
would be. In this World Cup, the referees did not have to guess if there was a
goal or not. In fact, the word "GOAL" would appear on the screen of
their watches courtesy of goal line technology. A German company, GoalControl,
had fitted 14 high-speed cameras - seven per goalmouth - to the roof of each of
the 12 stadiums. The cameras were connected to an image-processing computer
that filtered out non-ball-shaped objects and tracked the ball's position to
within a few millimeters. Some experts predict that goal line technology will
soon be used to detect offside, most offside called by the referee are always
controversial and the technology would ensure precision.
This World Cup has also seen an abundance of apps
make their way to various devices in order to keep fans better connected than
ever before. Fans would keep up-to-date with the latest scores and fixtures on
their mobile devices. There were a myriad of applications to choose from. With
the Official FIFA World Cup app the fans did not miss any news, standings, or
team schedules throughout the tournament. The ‘Onefootball Brasil – World Cup’
app kept the fans updated and informed, the app features all the latest team
news, match schedules, results and statistics. With this app, you could choose
your favourite team and keep track of their performance throughout the tournament.
The ‘World Cup Brazil 2014’ was packed full of features including a countdown
timer for the next games which can be displayed on your device’s home screen,
fixtures, videos, news, data match updates in real time, notifications and
more. The ‘FotMob’ allowed fans to access lives scores, match stats, lineups,
goals, assists, cards, penalties, substitutions, tables and more. In addition
to this, the fan would also be able to access news from the World Cup as well
as various football leagues.
