Adidas Trivonda

To create the official ball of the 2026 World Cup, Adidas product designers had to secretly implant a 14g sensor that tracks speed, location, speed, spin and contact 500 times per second inside the ball without disturbing its balance. Hans Schäfke, Director of Football Concepts, says that the connected ball technology in the Adidas Trionda gives the ball a heartbeat. Less romantically, CBT sends accurate real-time information to the virtual assistant referee, so human referees can make more accurate calls more quickly — like when they realized the stoppage-time goal at the end of the Croatia-Portugal group stage game was actually offside. Apparently, Trionda made a brief contact with Sir Igor Mantanovic before Josco Guardiola went in on goal.