by Les Carpenter
ROODEPOORT, South Africa – At a time when the United States soccer team needs predictability, there comes along something that has thrown everything into disorder at this World Cup.
The ball. It's been doing all these strange things.
The U.S. squad beat Australia 3-1 Saturday in a friendly match that marked its final practice game before the World Cup starts next week. But instead of acclimating themselves to potential lineups and the crisp, dry weather, the players seemed to spend much of Saturday afternoon worrying about the official new ball – more precisely, how it operates at more than 5,000 feet above sea level.
"It moves all over from side to side," said goalie Marcus Hahnemann, who had to make several diving stops in the second half in part because the ball eluded defenders in front of him. "It's hard to judge."
The problem for the players is that this adidas ball, named Jabulani, takes off sometimes. Too high, too fast, too far, players complain. This despite the fact that adidas officials recently told Time magazine's Sean Gregory that the ball is supposed to be 27 percent more accurate than other balls.
Instead, as U.S. players battled with Australia in a tiny track-and-field stadium on a mountaintop plain outside Johannesburg, the ball danced and twirled away from them – leaving them guessing where it would wind up, only to miss all together.
Hahnemann said he could remember two times when a U.S. defender lined up to head a ball away from the goal, only to miss completely. That is something, he added, that never used to happen.
"I don't want to adidas-bash," said Hahnemann, who wears Nike shoes. "Why do I practice my side ball for hours to perfect it and have it go in a different path?"
Once again, the defense – a source of recent concern for Team USA – looked awkward. While the U.S. team was quicker and more gifted than Australia, there were apparent lapses which continually forced Hahnemann in the second half and Tim Howard in the first to make sprawling saves. What was hard to understand was how much this was the fault of defenders to clear the ball out or the ball itself.
U.S. head coach Bob Bradley said it was the ball.
"It takes off a little bit; it flies," he said.
He was asked if he thought the ball was "unfair." He paused.
"I'm not sure," said the coach, who was wearing a uniform shirt made by Nike, the team's sponsor and adidas' top rival.
Of course, the ball is going to be a problem for everyone. Brazilian and English players have complained about it in recent days, as have players from other countries.
"I don't know if you get 100 percent used to it," said U.S. defender Jay DeMerit. "The movement of the ball is very unpredictable – especially for goalies."
He was quick to add, however, that he is not making excuses for the team and continued by saying that the ball is something all the teams will have to use.
Balls have long been the topic of discussion at World Cups. Every tournament, a new ball is introduced by a company that designs something outrageous in hopes that they will sell big. And every World Cup, teams complain that the ball is too fast, too light, with too quick a spin.
Then the games start and the best teams somehow still become the best teams and the best players find a way to score goals, and by the second week everything has been forgotten.
The only difference this time is that much of the Cup is being played at a high altitude, which might have more to do with affecting the flight of the ball than anything else. Ultimately, the United States' success or failure in the World Cup won't have anything to do with the ball or whether its defenders can properly predict the flight of each kick, but whether they can keep teams from getting as many good shots at the goal as Australia got.
It would help if Team USA could convert some of the easy shots it had on Saturday, including two at an open goal which missed. Blown chances will do more to break American hearts than the unpredictable flight of a ball named Jabulani.