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Remember the good old days? Jumpers for goalposts, 27-a-side kickabouts and a leather ball that stuck solid in the mud and defied anyone to move it. Success risked a broken foot. It was like kicking a demolition ball.

No more. Footballs today are a multimillion-pound industry, with manufacturers the world over chasing a slice of the lucrative pie. Faster and smoother they go, striving for that regularity and reliability of flight, the perfect sphere, the holy grail.

Fans like nothing better than a spectacularly swerving goal and experts insist that these will become commonplace as ball technology advances.

David Beckham, the “King of Curve”, can still curl a ball as if on elastic. Why else would Fabio Capello be considering the 34-year-old for a place in his squad for the World Cup finals in South Africa next year? Bend it like Beckham, indeed.

Cristiano Ronaldo, when not falling to earth, relies more on the dip-and-swirl method, two or three paces back at a free kick, then the unleashing of a wobbling Exocet that can befuddle even the most agile and experienced custodian of the net.

Perhaps Emiliano Insúa, the Argentina defender, never expected to be considered in such illustrious company. Beckham, Ronaldo, Insúa . . . rarely mentioned in the same breath until last week.

Liverpool trailed 1-0 against Arsenal in their Carling Cup fourth-round tie when Insúa stepped forward. Duncan Anderson, the development director with Mitre, the competition’s ball supplier, takes up the story.

“Insúa’s shot was preceded with a pinpoint pass, controlled layoff and an ideal bounce, with the ball falling on to the boot and then struck by a master,” Anderson said. “It was struck with power on the outside of the foot to give side-spin to make the ball bend left, below the centre of gravity to make the ball rise and, finally, with top spin to make it dip as it approached the goal.

“With 25 years developing balls, I still get a huge kick out of seeing a perfect strike make a great goal.”

Liverpool went on to lose 2-1. Yet for Anderson and his ilk, the hunt goes on. It is an endless search for the “sweet spot”, longer range, increased visibility, accuracy and speed.

Increased visibility may have been noticed last weekend, when the yellow Total90 Ascente ball was used in the Barclays Premier League for the first time. Nike visited 30 grounds across the globe to test its glare under floodlights. No expense is spared.

When the new ball was tested at Arsenal, Manchester United, Aston Villa and Fulham, it drew a humorous response from Arsène Wenger. “You always know when the designer has done a good job because the goalkeepers are complaining,” the Arsenal manager observed.

Some do, some don’t. Marcus Hahnemann, of Wolverhampton Wanderers, has been beaten by the good, the bad and the downright ugly. “Some balls are more predictable than others,” Hahnemann said. “That’s the ones you want. Some are terrible, like plastic balls on the beach. You know, those that you kick one way and they go the other. With some balls, at corners, I can’t come for them because I just don’t know where they’re going.”

Yet if the goalkeepers and manufacturers want consistency, that elimination of the unknown, the strikers think that is a load of, er, spheres.

“If you hit the ball at a certain pace, it has a lot of movement and the change of direction and velocity at which it flies through the air can really aid a striker,” Cameron Jerome, the Birmingham City forward, said. “If you really strike through the ball, it flies, and that can only be good for us front men.”

Goals are up in the Premier League this season compared with the same stage in the previous campaign, from 2.48 per match to 3.01. Is it the new ball? No one would dare to boast that it is down to the latest airflow techniques, microfibre outer layers, micro textures or panel patterns.

One thing is clear: Beckham, Ronaldo, Insúa and Jerome love it. The ball designers can keep on designing to their hearts’ content. Goalkeepers can keep having the nightmares.

Swerving the issue

June 1970 Rivelino’s long-range free kick, with bend and dip, in Brazil’s 4-1 victory against Czechoslovakia in the World Cup finals pioneers the swerve technique and earns him the nickname “Atomic Kick”.

June 1986 From a ludicrous distance, Josimar, the Brazil right back, unleashes a swerving shot that dumbfounds Pat Jennings in Northern Ireland’s 3-0 World Cup defeat. To prove it was no fluke, Josimar repeated the feat against Poland.

June 1997 Roberto Carlos’s 35-yard free kick for Brazil against France in Le Tournoi, struck with the outside of the left foot. Ballboy at the side of the goal ducks, thinking it might hit him, but it curls back into the net past Fabien Barthéz.

November 2008 Cristiano Ronaldo registers 100th goal for Manchester United in 5-0 romp over Stoke City. Stands 30 yards out on left and unleashes a “viciously” swerving right-foot free kick that Thomas Sorensen, the Stoke goalkeeper, can only help it into the net.

Words by Russell Kempson

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