The Adidas +Teamgeist (, with the plus sign being mute) is a

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

made by

Adidas Adidas AG (; stylized in all lowercase since 1949) is a German athletic apparel and footwear corporation headquartered in Herzogenaurach, Bavaria, Germany. It is the largest sportswear manufacturer in Europe, and the second largest in the ...

and developed jointly with

Molten Corporation is a sports equipment and automotive parts company based in Hiroshima, Japan. Molten is mostly known for manufacturing balls for several team sports, with a range of products that includes American footballs, association footballs, basketb ...

. It was the official match ball for the

2006 FIFA World Cup The 2006 FIFA World Cup was the 18th FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial international Association football, football world championship tournament. It was held from 9 June to 9 July 2006 in Germany, which had won the right to FIFA World Cup hosts ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

. The

plus sign The plus sign () and the minus sign () are mathematical symbols used to denote positive and negative functions, respectively. In addition, the symbol represents the operation of addition, which results in a sum, while the symbol represents ...

in its name was introduced for trademark purposes, since the regular

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

word ''Teamgeist'', meaning "team spirit", could not be trademarked.Teamgeist
on Soccer Ball World (archived, 6 Jan 2006)

Design

The ball was designed by the Adidas Innovation Team and the Molten Corporation and is made by Adidas, which has provided the balls used in all

World Cup A world cup is a global sporting competition in which the participant entities – usually international teams or individuals representing their countries – compete for the title of world champion. The event most associated with the name is ...

matches since the 1970 World Cup when the

Telstar Telstar refers to a series of communications satellites. The first two, Telstar 1 and Telstar 2, were experimental and nearly identical. Telstar 1 launched atop of a Thor-Delta rocket on July 10, 1962, successfully relayed the first televisi ...

was introduced. The +Teamgeist ball differs from previous balls in having just 14 curved panels (making the ball topologically equivalent to a

truncated octahedron In geometry, the truncated octahedron is the Archimedean solid that arises from a regular octahedron by removing six pyramids, one at each of the octahedron's vertices. The truncated octahedron has 14 faces (8 regular hexagon, hexagons and 6 Squa ...

), rather than the 32 that have been standard since 1970. Like the 32 panel Roteiro which preceded it, the +TeamGeist panels are bonded together, rather than stitched. It is claimed to be rounder and to perform more uniformly regardless of where it is hit, and being almost

waterproof Waterproofing is the process of making an object, person or structure waterproof or water-resistant so that it remains relatively unaffected by water or resists the ingress of water under specified conditions. Such items may be used in wet env ...

, it does not get heavier in wet weather.

World Cup match balls

Each of the 32 qualified federations received 40 match balls for training purposes. Match balls for the

were personalized with the name of the stadium, the teams, the match date, and the kick-off time of each individual game, under a protective coating. A special match ball was used for the final game — the +Teamgeist Berlin. The design is the same as the other match balls, but accented in gold, with black and white details. Both qualified federations (

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

and

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

) received 20 of these versions for training purposes.

Technical specification

Although it had been planned to include an electronic tracking system in the ball, this was abandoned after a trial at the 2005 Under-17 World Championship in

Peru Peru, officially the Republic of Peru, is a country in western South America. It is bordered in the north by Ecuador and Colombia, in the east by Brazil, in the southeast by Bolivia, in the south by Chile, and in the south and west by the Pac ...

. The Teamgeist was the first World Cup ball since 1970 to not have the traditional 32-panel

truncated icosahedron In geometry, the truncated icosahedron is a polyhedron that can be constructed by Truncation (geometry), truncating all of the regular icosahedron's vertices. Intuitively, it may be regarded as Ball (association football), footballs (or soccer ...

design. Instead, the ball is made up of 14 panels, which means that the number of three-panel touch points is reduced by 60% (60 to 24) and the total length of the panel lines falls by over 15% (400.5 cm to 339.3 cm). Building on the introduction of thermal bonding technology in 2004, the Teamgeist ball is the first time Adidas has used this in a World Cup.

Loughborough University Loughborough University (abbreviated as ''Lough'' or ''Lboro'' for Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a public university, public research university in the market town of Loughborough, Leicestershire, England. It has been a university sinc ...

conducted extensive comparative testing on the ball, along with the Adidas football laboratory in

Scheinfeld Scheinfeld is a town in the Neustadt (Aisch)-Bad Windsheim district, in Bavaria, Germany. It is situated 14 km northwest of Neustadt (Aisch), and 40 km east of Würzburg. Schloss Schwarzenberg is adjacent to the town. The town is hom ...

Criticism

While Johann Vogel and

David Beckham Sir David Robert Joseph Beckham ( ; born 2 May 1975) is an English former professional footballer, the president and co-owner of Inter Miami CF and co-owner of Salford City. Primarily a right winger and known for his range of passing, cross ...

, both sponsored by Adidas, and others were reported to be happy with the new ball, it was criticized by many top players before the World Cup. Players such as Brazil's

Roberto Carlos Roberto Carlos da Silva Rocha (born 10 April 1973), often known as Roberto Carlos and sometimes ''RC3'', is a Brazilian former professional association football, footballer. He has been described as the "most offensive-minded left-back in the ...

and Paul Robinson of England were among the critics of the new ball, claiming it was too light and had a vastly different performance when wet. The ball has fewer seams, reducing air resistance and thus altering flight patterns. The ''"Wawa Aba"'' ball of the Africa Cup of Nations was criticised by the player of the tournament, Hosny Abd Rabo of Egypt, who said that ball was bad for passing.

Teamgeist 2

The Teamgeist 2 was introduced by Adidas as an update of the ball during the

2007 FIFA Club World Cup The 2007 FIFA Club World Cup (officially known as the FIFA Club World Cup Japan 2007 presented by Toyota for sponsorship reasons) was a football tournament played in Japan from 7 to 16 December 2007. It was the fourth FIFA Club World Cup, a tourn ...

in Japan. The ball was then formally introduced in 2008 and was also used in the seven-a-side football tournament at the

2008 Summer Paralympics The 2008 Summer Paralympic Games (), the 13th Summer Paralympic Games, took place in Beijing, China, from September 6 to 17, 2008. As with the 2008 Summer Olympics, equestrian events were held in Hong Kong and sailing events in Qingdao. It was ...

2025 Remakes

In March 2025 adidas released the remake version of the +Teamgeist 2006 FIFA World Cup match ball in limited numbers, along with the limited edition

Adidas Predator Adidas Predator are a range of football boots developed by German sportswear manufacturer Adidas, introduced in 1994. The Predator boots are based on a prototype concept from the Australian former footballer Craig Johnston. A characteristic featu ...

football boots in the same colorway with the +Teamgeist match balls. The modernized version of the +Teamgeist were also being used during the

2024–25 UEFA Nations League The 2024–25 UEFA Nations League is the fourth season of the UEFA Nations League tournament, an international association football competition involving the men's national teams of the member associations of UEFA. The competition is being held f ...

second-leg quarterfinal match between Spain and The Netherlands. While the colorway of the match balls are the same with the original +Teamgeist, the panels design are derived from the adidas Fussballliebe, the official match ball of the

UEFA Euro 2024 The 2024 UEFA European Football Championship, commonly referred to as UEFA Euro 2024 (stylised as UEFA EURO 2024) or simply Euro 2024, was the 17th UEFA European Championship, the quadrennial international Association football, football champ ...

Variants

Adidas has produced multiple variants of the +Teamgeist and Teamgeist 2 for various competitions. Variants of this ball include the ''Adidas Teamgeist 2 Magnus Moenia'', used in the

2008 Olympic Games The 2008 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXIX Olympiad () and officially branded as Beijing 2008 (), were an international multisport event held from 8 to 24 August 2008, in Beijing, China. A total of 10,942 athletes fr ...

, as well as the related Adidas Europass used for

UEFA Euro 2008 The 2008 UEFA European Football Championship, commonly referred to as UEFA Euro 2008 or simply Euro 2008, was the 13th UEFA European Championship, a quadrennial association football, football tournament contested by the member nations of UEFA ( ...

References

{{FIFA Women's World Cup official match balls

Teamgeist The Adidas +Teamgeist (, with the plus sign being mute) is a ball (association football), football made by Adidas and developed jointly with Molten Corporation. It was the List of FIFA World Cup official match balls, official match ball for the 2 ...

2006 FIFA World Cup Loughborough University Products introduced in 2005