Europass

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Adidas Europass, match ball of the European Football Championship 2008

Europass is the name of the official match ball for the 2008 European Football Championship in Austria and Switzerland .

development

With its black dots on a white background, the Europass was reminiscent of a mixture of earlier soccer balls and the + team spirit , the official match ball of the 2006 World Cup in Germany. However, it was developed in collaboration with adidas and Bayer MaterialScience , who chose its name after the newly introduced “Euro” passport. The ball was officially presented during the final draw on December 2, 2007 in Lucerne . The "normal" Europass was used for the games up to the semi-finals. In the final game on June 29, 2008 between Germany and the Spanish selection, the final ball "Europass Gloria" was used.

The ball consists of an orange plastic air bubble that is sewn into scraps of fabric and also covered with latex. This shape and arrangement of the panels was chosen as with the + Teamgeist and serves to better round the ball.

A new addition to the ball is the polymer material called PCS-Texture , which covers the surface. The Europass weighs between 441 and 444 grams and increases its weight by just 4.5%, even in heavy rain, which is below the FIFA standard of 10%.

criticism

Like the + team spirit , the Europass was also criticized by some goalkeepers and players . The Czech goalkeeper Petr Čech and the German goalkeeper Jens Lehmann mainly criticized his unpredictable trajectory.

Stamp

On March 12, 2008, Austrian Post issued a circular special stamp with the Europass motif. The tokens were made from the same material as the cue ball. The stamp has a face value of 3.75 euros and was produced by Cartor Security Printing in an edition of 490,000.

See also

Web links

Commons : Adidas Europass  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. materialsgate.de of May 30, 2008, accessed on August 24, 2011
  2. [1]
  3. Financial Times Deutschland: Cech criticizes flutter balls . Article dated June 6, 2008
  4. Brand football with goosebumps - the new special stamp “adidas - EUROPASS” brings the original UEFA EURO 2008 ball to stick. Press release of the Austrian Post of March 13, 2008