This rainy Turkey-Switzerland (2-1) was yesterday... you might not hear us Europeans overseas but the UEFA EURO 2008 soccer event unleashes a lot of emotions. Besides the performance of great sportspeople, also materials play a decisive role in winning or losing as demonstrated by the ball itself!

Bayer MaterialScience and Adidas joined forces to develop this piece of high-tech sports equipment which goes by the name "EUROPASS". If we take a closer look, we see that the ball has little goose bumps.

Thomas Michaelis, Project manager Ball Development (great title!), notes that this so called "PSC" texture gives the ball more strength and spin. PSC stands for Power-Swerve-Control, or in other words, providing players more power, more spin and more precision - in all weather conditions (see photo).

So far, back to the game...

via Bayer MaterialScience