TOKYO (Reuters) – Knowledge from the ninja, Japan’s secretive feudal spies and assassins, is the secret behind the new official ball for the upcoming World Cup, one Japanese researcher has said.

Innovation is a word that gets thrown around a lot in discussions about modern sports equipment. Soccer balls have changed a lot over the last 10 years, with adidas being the leader in producing new ...

Forget any notion of a 32-paneled soccer ball, true stitching or black-and-white design. The Brazuca, the official adidas-made match ball for World Cup 2014, engineers roundness well beyond tradition.

Since 1970, Adidas has been designing new soccer balls for every World Cup, many incorporating materials and technologies that were innovative advances for their time. The amazingly skilled players ...

Soccer’s worldwide popularity is due in large part to the simplicity of the equipment. All you need to play is a few friends and a round object that resembles a ball. Throughout the sport’s history ...

A ball is just a ball, right? Something round, something stitched together. Just a ball. Well, not when the world watches it slice through the air during the World Cup and the company making it calls ...

Three of the 12 soccer stadiums where Brazil will host the FIFA World Cup are still under construction. Only 1 in 3 Brazilians thinks the monthlong tournament will be good for their country’s economy.

Every four years, FIFA introduces a new official World Cup ball. A ton of science goes into the process -- and whether the players like it comes down to physics. Designed by Adidas, the ball itself is ...

RIO DE JANEIRO – It's gotta be the ball. The number and quality of goals in this year's World Cup is remarkable bordering on incredible, and there have been plenty of theories as to why. The simplest ...

It's one of the stars of the World Cup - the paintbrush with which the world's greatest footballing maestros must create their art. But is it up to the task? The Brazuca, the official ball of Brazil ...

Since 1970, Adidas has been designing new soccer balls for every World Cup, many incorporating materials and technologies that were innovative advances for their time. The amazingly skilled players ...