Every four years, the World Cup brings new technologies and new ideas. Some of them turn into big hits, and some of them turn into whipping posts of all problems.
This year their is plenty of complaints about the Jabulani, but there is another complaint starting to crop up regarding the quality of the playing surface.
This debate started last year with the replacement of native grass with European rye grass blends. Two of the stadiums have something completely new, and of course the players are crying foul over them.
Once FIFA had all stadiums in South Africa replace their turf with European Rye blend that they seem more comfortable with, they then went ahead and deployed an artificial blend in two stadiums – in Polokwane and Nelspruit. After the Algerian Slovenia match, there was complaints that the surface affected the movement of the ball, which was of course the reason for the goal getting through. There was no comment on the porousness of the Algerian defense.
The surface is not as radical as one would think. It’s a product called Desso GrassMaster. Sound familiar? It should (okay, it ‘might’ if you’re a greenskeeper or really obsessive), it’s in use at the Great Emirates stadium, and five other Premier League stadia. Not convinced? it’s deployed at Carrow Road in Norwich.
Another seven matches will be played on the mixed synthetic and grass pitches, including France against Mexico on June 17 and Greece against Argentina on June 22. If there is an increase of unfortunate injuries during these matches, then maybe we will have something more to discuss.
The grass plays faster,and the ball plays faster/flies further…suck it up!
Agreed for the most part, but it does seem like players have been slipping and sliding more than usual, and tearing up big chunks of turf more frequently. Might just be confirmation bias, though…
Being a Seattle fan I have tons of people constantly complaining to me about the fact we play on Turf. Everyone whines and whines and whines about playing surfaces while most people who play this game play it on dirt or concrete or just plain old really crappy surfaces. To me it’s like the NFL melting the snow on the entire field during a game. This is a game, play it on whatever surface is available!
If there’s grass on the field . . .
I’m 12.
Care to explain why this was necessary for the WC?
What are its advantages over… you know… grass?
I can understand that in cold, depressing, dreary, wet, stanky England you might want something which withstands bad weather throughout 7-8 months but for 3 to 5 games over a month, how much better is this thing than the real stuff?
AC Milan on their latest money tour in north america made teams cover turf with real grass. No idea how much that cost but this was a non-debatable (meaning even if you paid them more, they wouldnt do it!) item for them to honour a city with the presence of their shirts.
jgk: The artificial threads are pushed down into the roots. It makes it really hard for tackles to undo the turf and cause divots, or even just get brown patches. It’s almost like sewing the grass into the ground.
Was it on this site that is saw the Wembley head grounds keeper made the decision to switch to rye?