Nike Total 90 Tracer Ball Play Test
The SoccerBible recently attended Nike's T90 Tracer event organised specifically to put the new Premier League, Serie A and La Liga football through it paces. Find out how the T90 Tracer Ball performed in the SoccerBible play test!
Football fans are probably fed up of hearing about controversy surrounding footballs, which is actually the first thing that makes the T90 Tracer stand-out for us. Not much has been said about Nike's new football, which speaks volumes for it's performance, because you can be sure if the ball wasn't a good one there would be an uproar amongst players and goalkeepers.
The set-up for the event was geared to give the ball a thorough and rigorous test, to really find out how the T90 Tracer ball responds to close control, ball touch, short and long passing, dribbling and shooting. Identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the ball through a variety of drills, and drawing on the experience and opinions of Premier League goalkeepers Marcus Hahnemann, Tim Howard and Thomas Sorensen.
On the theory side of things, Nike have engineered the Tracer Ball to have a 360° sweet spot due to the panel and stitching design. The ball is constructed using five layers of material bonded together to form the shell, incorporating a micro-textured casing for aerodynamic stability, and expanded foam for a soft-feel in all conditions. But that's the theory covered, now let's find out how the ball performed in its practical!
We initially got a feel for the ball with an open session involving various dribbling and passing drills. The ball has a nice texture, and feels responsive off the boot during both dribbling and passing. The first thing we noticed though, was that we had to adjust our controlling touch when receiving the ball.
Perhaps because the ball is made up from five layers, including foam, but when fully inflated there is still a slight softness to the ball which makes it very bouncy. Therefore we needed to adjust our controlling touch slightly to compensate for this, preventing the ball from bouncing off the boot by offering additional cushioning and dampening for the ball.
The T90 Tracer football feels like it's got a bit of weight to it, which affects a couple of areas of your play. When dribbling with the ball at speed, we found your touches need to be clean and firm to get the ball out from your feet. That doesn't mean you're going to trip over the ball, but it means it can be unforgiving if you don't make a clean contact with the ball.
More significantly though, we found the Nike Tracer gives you the confidence to put your foot through the ball, to deliver a quick, direct or cross-field pass. Marcus Hahnemann backed this up, by agreeing that when you hit the ball long with backspin it responds and flies straight, and Marcus emphasised the importance of this for goalkeeper's kicking.
The Tracer's response continued to impress when we moved onto shooting. Bearing in mind we were trying to beat Premier League opposition, we were mixing up our efforts to both blast and place the ball beyond the keepers - and on both accounts the ball performed.
Hitting with power you can really feel your boot go through the ball, but you don't feel it's absorbing power because of the carbon latex bladder inside transferring the power. As for positioning the ball and hitting with spin, the ball was following it's intended path and wasn't deviating or moving in the air.
Visually the T90 Tracer is a good looking ball, it's design is reminiscent of the patches of an old school ball, which we like. Of course Nike being Nike, there is thinking behind this pattern as it's designed to engage peripheral vision. This is probably something for the science lab, but as players on the pitch we can confirm that we had no problems spotting the ball in both bright sunlight and gloomy grey clouds!
To summarise the Nike T90 Tracer football, we have to be honest and say compared to the World Cup ball catastrophe, Nike didn't really have their work out to impress us. But rather than rest on their laurels and create an average football, Nike have engineered a great piece of performance equipment. The T90 Tracer does everything you want from a ball, and most importantly as universally agreed by all those present, it's nice to know that if you hit the ball right it's going to go where you want!
Stay tuned to the SoccerBible to find out the opinions of Premier League and World Cup goalkeepers Tim Howard and Marcus Hahnemann, for their full, in-depth and professional opinion.
