The fact that Adidas did not produce a new design for the 1974 FIFA World Cup is a testament of how successful the initial Telstar balls became. Adidas even kept the Telstar name, only the text on the balls were updated. The previous balls became heavier when wet, which made them much more difficult to control — players had to kick them harder to reach the same distance. The new balls were coated by a stronger Durlast layer, though, in order to prevent water coming into the ball through the seams. This changed the picture of the games significantly.

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Adidas became the official supplier of match balls for the FIFA World Cup in 1970, and still is. The very first black and white ball was called “Telstar”, coming from the union of two words: television and star. It was said at that time that the combination and contrast of black and white would amplify the visibility of the balls on both colour and black and white televisions, given that the Mexican World Cup was the first World Cup to be broadcast on TV worldwide. The Telstar consisted of 32 panels (20 white regular hexagonal and 12 black regular pentagonal), and on the outer surface a special plastic coating was applied and called “Durlast”. This helped the ball to protect the leather more than previously on any surface and to keep it waterproof. The Telstar is still one of the most iconic and classic football of all time and by far the most expensive one (if ever found on sale).

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The Slazenger Challenge was made of high quality leather and entirely hand sewn. It was composed of 25 rectangular panels, joined together in a way that was very similar to the 1958 ball and which differed only in the panel which contained the valve. In the Slazenger ball the valve was in the centre of a small panel between two other, even shorter panels. The remaining panels were the same as the 1958 ball and the inflating system was the latest type valve — latex rubber. The ball provided excellent sphericity, and its composition was adopted over the years by other brands. The balls of the 1966 World Cup were provided in three different colours; white, yellow, and orange. Although the most widely used model was the white version, in the memory of football fans the orange ball of the historic final of Wembley remains the strongest.

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The Crack ball had an innovative design. It was composed of 18 irregular polygonal panels, having three different shapes: hexagonal, rectangular and hexagonal curved, all joined together by manual sewing. With the new latex valve the air and the spherical shape was retained longer. The Crack ball is still aesthetically considered one of the most elegant World Cup balls. However, the quality of the coloured coating was poor and did not last for very long. European teams did not like the ball, therefore 100 pieces of the 1958 Top Star were sent as reserves to Chile, in case the Crack model would fail in a match.

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The Top Star ball became a popular design, it was similar to the balls of the time — however, on this ball there were elegantly alternating long and short panels; two short panels in the midst of two long panels and the inflation valve was in the centre of one short panel. The ball brought technological developments as well — the leather balls were treated with a waterproofing wax, making the balls more water resistant. The 1958 World Cup balls were yellow, light brown or white. In matches when it was rainy or wet, the white ones were used.

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The official match ball of the 1954 FIFA World Cup was composed of 18 panels with zig-zag edges, perfectly interlocked to each other. The ball was completely hand sewn and no longer had laces — just like its predecessor, the Superball from the 1950 World Cup. The colour of the ball was not dark brown any more, rather an attractive yellowish or “hell orange”. This made the ball more visible during rainy matches when the pitch became muddy. The name of this newly designed ball was Swiss World Champion and it was manufactured by the company Kost Sports from Basel.

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Even though the lace-less construction had been invented at the beginning of the thirties, it took more than a decade for lace-less balls appearing at the FIFA World Cup. The 1950 Superball consisted of 12 identical panels but the edges of these panels were more curved than before. The Superball was a brown hand sewn ball, and FIFA allowed the manufacturer to print logos and text on the ball. As we can see in the case of the balls from 1954 (Switzerland), 1958 (Sweden) and 1966 (England) World Cup balls, this was an exception since these balls had to be free from branding — regardless of that the manufacturers put branded balls on the general market for sale at the same time. However, for the 1962 ball (Chile, between the 1958 and 1966 World Cups) they allowed print and text on the Crack ball used in the Chile World Cup.

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The Allen ball used in 1938 was similar to the Federale 102 from the previous World Cup since it also consisted of 13 panels. The cotton laces of the Allen balls were white — however, this was not a long lasting colour, since the rain and mud immediately changed the colour of the laces to brown. The ball was hand sewn, just like its predecessors, and had to be inflated by a skilled person. If the inflation and closure of the laces were not precise, the ball would not become spherical — which would influence the trajectory of the ball.

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The Federale 102 ball was composed by 13 polygonal panels which were cut and perfectly fitted together by hand sewing. Most of the classic balls at that time were 12 panel models (like the ones used 4 years earlier in the first World Cup) but the Federale 102 brought the innovation of having the laces on a separate panel to inflate the balls. The bladder was enclosed by lace with 6 rows. For the very first time the leather laces of a World Cup ball were replaced by brown cotton, very similar to the ones used on shoes. This represents a small detail but an important improvement — as cotton is much softer than leather, this encouraged players to head the ball more.

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The most famous pre-Adidas World Cup ball of all time is the T-model from the 1930 Uruguay World Cup. Uruguay played the majority of its matches with this ball until they faced Argentina in the final match. Since Argentina wanted to play with their own ball (which was a regular 12 panel ball), the final was played with the Argentinean ball for the first half of the match, and the second half was played with the Uruguayan ball. The footballs may have had a significant influence, as Argentina took a 2-1 lead in the first half with their own ball, but Uruguay replied in the second half with their T-model ball to win 4–2, making them the first World Champions and the T-Model legendary.

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