Managers are suspicious about the ball used for the League Cup – so we tested it
04 February 2025 9:15am GMT
Mikel Arteta revived one of his mentor’s talking points last month, after Arsenal lost their League Cup semi-final first leg 2-0 to Newcastle. “We kicked a lot of balls over the bar, and it’s tricky that these balls fly a lot,” said Arteta. “It’s just different, very different to the Premier League ball. It flies different when you touch it, the grip is very different as well. You have to adapt to that.”
The ball in question was the Puma Orbita 1, identical in all but branding to the football used in the Championship, League One and League Two. The Premier League’s balls have been supplied by Nike for 25 years with the Flight its current model, an iteration of a design first used for 2020-21.
Pep Guardiola also noted the differences in a League Cup ball in 2017, when Arteta was on his staff. “The ball was unacceptable for a high-level competition,” said Guardiola. “It is too light, it moves all over the place, it is not a good ball. It is impossible to score with a ball like that and I can say that because we won, I’m not making excuses.” On that occasion Mitre were the manufacturers in the manager’s crosshairs.
Neither Guardiola nor Arteta were truly moaning. With some weeks to ruminate on Arteta’s words he actually seemed to be criticising his players’ failure to adapt, rather than any shortcomings from Puma. But did he have a point?
On a cold but blessedly dry morning in between legs one and two of the EFL Cup semis we headed to Hayes Lane, home of League Two’s Bromley FC. Armed with the Nike Flight and Puma Orbita 1, both in fetching wintertime high-vis yellow, we borrowed a first-teamer, a veteran, a goalkeeper and a youth-teamer to test the balls.
‘Premier League ball is more floaty’
From the sidelines it was impossible to establish any reliable pattern of behaviour. There were erratic shots from both balls from a variety of distances but superb rip-snorting efforts too. Bromley midfielder Jude Arthurs liked the Puma ball for free-kicks but preferred Nike’s when attempting the crossbar challenge – trying to hit the woodwork from the halfway line. He was the only competitor to achieve this aim, and he did so with the Premier League ball.
“We played with the FA Cup ball [a Mitre FA Cup Ultimax Pro] a few weeks ago,” he says. “It felt a bit flat, like an air-floater. These ones fly really well when you connect with them.
“I thought the Premier League ball was a bit more floaty on free-kicks, you couldn’t really kick through it as much. The EFL one, I could properly wrap my foot around it.”
Bromley were promoted from the National League to League Two last summer which meant a ball switch. “Last year we were using New Balance and when we came in for pre-season we had these new Puma balls and all the boys were saying: ‘I don’t like these.’ If we went back to the New Balance now they’d be saying the same thing, so I think it’s just about getting used to them.”
Scott Wagstaff is Bromley’s Under-17s coach but played more than 350 Football League games for Charlton, Bristol City and Gillingham among others. “I preferred the Carabao ball to strike as I think it’s a tiny bit heavier,” he says. “The Premier League one felt a bit more floaty, but it was nicer to strike on your feet, not hurting as much.”