New Ball Not Winning Fans Of The Italian Goalkeeping Variety

The new Europass ball was designed to give the flight path a bit more swerve and, in turn, make the games a bit more exciting for the viewers – not unsimilar to the way they designed the ball for World Cup 2006 (there were some first day examples when Germany took on Costa Rica). Makes the fans happy, makes the players striking the ball happy more often than not (especially when their easy save winds up in the back of the net), but it doesn’t seem to be making goalkeepers happy. In particular the Italian duo of Gigi Buffon and Marco Amelia.

Buffon, for one, isn’t worried:

“Maybe we just have to get used to it. But it won’t matter, I’ll get the ball anyway.”

Of course he will, he’s Gigi Buffon.

Amelia was a bit more critical in his assessment, even though it’ll take a catastrophic injury for him to get off the bench. Marco (who is also up for sale and his agent would love for you to know that, shameless whore that he is), says the ball is heavy and that:

“It changes direction. To not make a mess trying to stop it, it’s better to beat it away.”

So maybe we’ll be seeing more rebounds than we’re used to, which could result in more goals and more goals equals more fun. Unless you’re a keeper.