Adidas Telstar.
If you were to ask someone to draw a football, chances are they would draw the Adidas Telstar (without even knowing it).
A real change and pioneer in production, the style of ball was first introduced in the 1968 European Football Championships as the Telstar Elast. And it’s slight upgrade The Telstar Durlast the official match ball of the 1970 FIFA World Cup in Mexico.
The Adidas Telstar was the first World Cup ball to use the now-familiar truncated icosahedron for it’s design, consisting of 12 black pentagonal and 20 white hexagonal panels. The importance and relevance of how different this ball was is shown even more so with its inclusion on the official logo for the 1970 World Cup.
Its’ name came from the 1962 Telstar communications satellite which was spherical and dotted with solar panels, similar to the balls appearance — a suggestions that the ball was ‘the star of television’. The use of black and white as the pattern was to aid visibility on black and white TV broadcasts as colour TV was very rare at this time — changing football design forever.
Since it’s evolution, the Adidas Telstar has continued to progress with experts working to constantly strive to make the perfect spherical football. The Telstar 18 was used in the FIFA World Cup 2018 held in Russia and paid homage to its roots staying true to the original model. It’s iconic beginnings and treasured heritage have kept this ball in the minds and hearts of football fans and players for over 50 years.