The convergence of sportand technology! I don’t know, I think it’s cool. So, here’s another. This is the Finale Madrid, and it will be used at the UEFA Champions League final in Madrid this May. In a perfect world, the game will be played between Real Madrid and Barcelona—I will lose my mind if that happens.

Like other soccer balls (the Adidas Jabulani and the Nike T90 Ascente), there’s a lot going on in here. You see the stars? Somehow, Adidas has managed to make that completely inseparable from the ball itself—it’s not just painted on there. That helps ensure the ball’s flight is as unobstructed as possible. The ball keeps the PSC Texture as seen in previous balls. It’s the golf ball effect: golf balls have dimples in order to steady the flight, and so does the Finale Madrid.

Again, the UEFA Champions League final will be played in Madrid (Real Madrid’s home stadium, the Santiago Bernabéu, to be exact) on May 22. I will be completely unreachable during the game.

UPDATE Oh my God, Real Madrid has been knocked out of the Champions League by Olympique Lyon of France. Can anyone give me a ustream link to La Rambla in Barcelona? I can only imagine they’re partying like it’s 1999 in Catalunya right now.

The way I see it, there is only one way to overcome your complete lack of athleticism. No, not hard work and dedication—I’m talking about gadgets. These 10 products will help you play like a champ this summer.

Face it, you could barely slip a playing card between your feet and the ground on a vertical jump. Poweriser spring-loaded boots can give you a vertical leap of up to six feet and run strides of up to nine feet. Just imagine what you could do on the basketball court. Check out the product page to see it in action. [Powerisers]
Of all the sports out there, golf is probably the one you need the most help with. Titanium drivers have revolutionized the sport, but the Air Force One driver from PowerBilt takes things a step further with compressed nitrogen. Filling the clubhead with nitrogen at 150 psi allows you to reduce the thickness of the face and increase the size of the sweet spot—and increased flex in the clubface means greater distance. Surprisingly, this club even meets USGA guidelines. [PowerBilt via Link]
When it comes right down to it, putting is really at the core of a good golf game. The Argon Laser Putter helps give you an edge in that area with a three-laser targeting system. [Argon Putter via Link]
The Vector O Bat blends the finest in wiffle technology with space age alloys to generate better aerodynamics, faster bat speed and greater distance. [Reebok via Link]
Designed for the three big football leagues (England’s Premier League, Spain’s La Liga, and Italy’s Serie A), Nike’s T90 Ascente is the most advanced football $140 can buy. The secret is in a three-layer construction that basically turns the entire ball into a sweet spot. [Nike via Link]
Wooldand creatures won’t know what killed them when you are sporting a TAC-15 crossbow. It mounts directly onto an AR-15 rifle, allowing you to switch between both weapons quickly and easily. [PSE via Link]
Until these high tech bodysuits like the LZR Racer are officially banned from major swimming competitions starting next year, athletes are going to continue to break world records at an alarming rate. [Speedo]
I don’t see a Tour de France in your future, so why work so hard with all that pedaling? The Sanyo Enloop carbon fiber electric bike handles that problem for you and can keep you going for up to 62 miles on a single 3.5 hour charge. [Sanyo via Link]
Spend less time fishing and more time getting drunk with this radio controlled chum boat. Not only does it drop feed and a bait hook up to 950 feet away, it also has a built-in fish finder that relays information to your handheld remote. [Pro Idee via Link]
Team building my ass—show your co-workers who is really the boss on your next paintball excursion by building a turret. This beauty can mow down your enemies with a firing rate of 34 balls per second. It can even be controlled with a HUD from up to half a mile away. Hit the following link for the complete instructions on how to build one yourself. [Inventgeek]

New season, new ball. The three big football leagues—England’s Premier League, Spain’s La Liga, and Italy’s Serie A—begin in just a few weeks, and Nike has developed a fancy, new ball for them that’s loaded with all types of hi-tech goodness that may pique your interest. It’s called the T90 Ascente. Goalkeepers will hate it; flashy forwards will love it.

What’s so damn special about the ball? The Nike bullet points are: “360 Sweet Spot,” “Longer Range,” “Increased Visibility,” “Higher Accuracy,” and “Greater Speed.”

Breaking those down, the “360 Sweet Spot” refers to the way the ball reacts to being kicked. Usually, footballs have a “sweet spot,” like the “meat” of a baseball bat, that you’re trained to hit for maximum speeds, accuracy, etc. Apparently the T90 Ascente doesn’t have a “sweet spot,” per se, rather that the whole ball is a sweet spot. That is, wherever you kick it, the ball will react as if you’ve kicked the sweet spot. Good news for Quaresma. (Why do sports compilation videos on YouTube always have terrible music?)

Longer range? That’s pretty obvious, right? The ball is constructed in three layers, and this somehow makes the ball travel two ball lengths longer than previous Nike footballs.

Increased visibility. You’ll notice the patterns on the ball; it sort of looks like the scanner from Half-Life 2:

Anyhow, the patterns are such that they create a “flicker” as the ball spins. That’ll be helpful on those awful, gray winter days in Liverpool.

If you actually had the ball in your hands, you’d see that its surface is textured to a degree that’s probably a little different than the last ball you kicked. Nike calls it “micro-textured,” which basically lets air flow around the ball more smoothly, creating less resistance, etc. You know, like the dimples on a golf ball.

The T90 Ascenete is also faster than previous balls, traveling at about 22.19 m/s (72.17 feet/s). Something to do with the three-layer construction.

All this talk of multi-layer construction reminds me of the great Razor Blade Wars of the past decade. “Our razor has three blades.” “Well our razor has four blades.” “Ha! Our blade has five blades!.

And, uh, if you speak Spanish, watch this video. It explains the technological wonder of the ball.

Nike has its own video, in English, that I can’t embed. (Though, if I were feeling crazy, I could probably just swipe the Flash file then upload to our CG YouTube account. No thanks.) It’s here if you’re interested.

About 15 minutes ago I wrote “Goalkeepers will hate it; flashy forwards will love it.” But now I see FC Barcelona’s goalkeeper Víctor Valdés praising the ball in that Spanish video. Figures.