World Cup: Footage of the Jabulani ball causing mayhem in 2010

The 2010 World Cup wouldn’t have been the same without the Jabulani football.

While, yes, there is always a mild level of interest whenever a new World Cup football is released, you’d be hard-pressed to find a ball that has become more of a household name than the 2010 iteration.

That’s because the Jabulani gained a remarkable level of notoriety for moving with extreme unpredictability, leading to passionate complaints, wild misses and astonishing goals.

For what the World Cup in South Africa might have lacked in entertainment, it most certainly made up for with strikes of such a bizarre nature that we’ve never seen the likes again since.

The obvious example of someone who mastered the Jabulani was none other than Golden Ball winner Diego Forlan, who racked up some stunning strikes from his five goals with the infamous sphere.

However, the Jabulani clearly didn’t work for everybody with Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Kaka, Wayne Rooney and Fernando Torres scoring a combined total of one goal at the competition.

All in all, it led to a situation where every top-class footballer and their dog had a strongly-worded complaint to make about the ball with the Independent recalling some of the best in 2020.

Julio Cesar bemoaned: “The football is horrible. It is like one of those you buy in the supermarket.”

Gianluigi Buffon fumed: “The new model is absolutely inadequate and I think it’s shameful letting us play such an important competition, where a lot of champions take part, with a ball like this.”

And David James simply said: “The ball is dreadful. It’s horrible.”

Pretty cutting, right? Well, bearing that in mind, we thought that it would be rude not to reminisce on all the madness, so be sure to check out footage of the