Global Phenom
22 men kicking a round ball on a pitch really gets people going. I got stuck in ever since I was 6 and woke up to see the then USSR playing some other team in Mexico '86. Obscure as my introduction to football was, it has had a lasting effect and I'm sure a lot of people feel the same, what with all the World Cup tie-ins. Its not just the big companies sponsoring the World Cup or McDonald's advertising their 24hr delivery service.
The Swiss are well represented. (Something to do with their qualification I suspect.) Take for instance, FREITAG's Calcio balls revised for 11 different countries. Each ball is modelled after the nation's flag, so you've got Japan's Rising Sun and Argentina's Sun of May represented on the pentagonal and hexagonal panels. Water bottle makers SIGG are getting in the act as well, with a collection of World Cup related designs planned since May '05. Clever buggers.
You don't need to don a jersey if you don't want to either. Plenty of football related apparel for you to look understated but still represent your fave sport in. The T-1 World Cup is a Tee-off, literally, as creatives as diverse as Stefan Sagmeister, Naoto Fukasawa and Singapore's own Phunk Studio square off to see whose specially designed tee sells the most. (Got this off jeansnow.net and posted on Josh Spear as well.) Plus we have Modell Deutschland's 3D football pitch shirt. Also too late now, but if you caught it, Arkitip's football issue #34 had an ARKITIP x Peter Sutherland x adidas jersey packaged with it.
On the art front, Bora Herke's artballs have been getting lots of blogttention. Each ball made in the likeness of a particular cliche of the country. Jeans for the US, manga for Japan for instance. As with Masked Ball, just one of 24 football themed art works at the Leipzig Museum of Fine Arts. Kendall Geers basically stuffed some political heads onto footballs, which everyone can kick at!
iPod in need some protection against various football hooligans? Vaja has the answer with their World Cup themed releases. (Just don't sport the wrong one is all.)
This solution to typical poor aim when it comes to shooting in the toilet is particularly apt. Via Boing Boing.
So from some blokes kicking around the head of a Danish prince (if you were so inclined to believe) to the Adidas +Teamgeist with its fancy schmancy 14 non polygonal panels, football has come a long way. (Although given that the top searches for the word football on google turns up a rubbish sport and the recent footballing lesson the Czechs gave to the Americans shows that for some parts of the world at least, there's still quite a ways to go as well.)
