Official World Cup Telstar Match Soccer Ball - The History of the Official World Cup Match Balls

Telstar: Mexico, 1970

Adidas started to make soccer balls in 1963 but made the first official FIFA World Cup ball in 1970. The first ball with 32 black and white panels. The TELSTAR (Star of Television) was more visible on black and white televisions (1970 FIFA World Cup Mexico™ was the first to be broadcast live on television).

The Adidas Telstar was completely made of leather like all other balls in its time; however, unlike any other ball, it featured 32 hand-stitched panels (12 black pentagons and 20 white hexagons). This created the roundest sphere of its time.

The revolutionary design of Telstar re-wrote soccer ball history: it was the first white football ever to be decorated with black pentagons. Mexico 1970 was the first live televised FIFA World Cup and the revolutionary design of Telstar. The name derives from “Star of Television” which made the ball far more visible on black and white television. Until this day, the Adidas Telstar remains the common design type of all generic soccer balls.

According to Francisco: "The Telstar balls with NO marks or logos were made EXCLUSIVELY for the matches of the world cup... This ball was a gift from the organization committee of the world cup to a radio journalist in Mexico city.
The ball was used in the previous match to the " Game of the Century " Germany vs Italy at Azteca stadium.

The ball originally belonged to the German team. They returned the ball to the committee. The committee in turn gave the ball to the journalist as a gift...The journalist had the above pictured ball in his house for over 38 years!
All Telstar balls with marks like "adidas","official world cup Mexico","Telstar Durlast " are originals too, but they were not used in the world cup.

These balls with marks were sold in stores or by catalogue..

3 kinds of balls were used in the world cup. All with 32 panels, and with NO marks.
1) White ball. All panels were white.
2) Brown ball. All panels were brown.
3) And this one, the most popular and used in the world cup, with 20 hexagons white and 12 pentagons black."