Kasper Schmeichel thinks so.
The former Denmark goalkeeper took no chances and familiarised himself with the Adidas ball long before the tournament even kicked off.
Schmeichel trained with the Trionda following its release, in October 2025, only for his side to go on to lose their play-off final against the Czech Republic.
Now retired, Schmeichel is well-placed to give an insight into what he calls the “serious difference between the balls”.
“The thing about this one is the construction of it is four panels this time,” he told the BBC Football Daily podcast. “There’s no stitching in it – it’s all bonded together.
“When you mix that in with the different weathers, the air density, there’s less drag on the ball, which means it doesn’t spin as much, but it also means I find it a split second faster and I think we’re seeing that a little bit.
“There’s a couple of goals where you’re seeing keepers getting close to it – Pickford, with the first goal of the Croatia scores – and you’ve got Luca Zidane against [Lionel] Messi and even Edouard Mendy against Mbappe.
“The thing about this ball is that we want to see goals, so they build balls to score goals.”
There have certainly been plenty of goals already.
In fact, there have been twice as many from outside the box (20) than there were during the whole of the group stages in 2022.
According to Opta, the number of errors leading to goals is also on the up.
There have been 11 so far in the United States, Canada and Mexico – more than in the group stages in any of the past seven World Cups.
Although six further games have admittedly been played up to this point, following the tournament’s expansion, it is still a significant increase.
“How many times at the top level do you see the goalkeeper touch it and it go in the goal?” Hart said.
“Very rarely because they’re good enough that once they do get contact, they get it wide.
“I’m noticing in this tournament that goalkeepers are getting touches on it above their shoulder height and they’re just not able to keep it out, so something is up.”
Leave a Reply