More Jabulani match ball chat, now from a U.S. player perspective

OK, I’m convinced. The balls is screwy.

We’ve all seen more than our fair share of balls sailing well high on free kicks. (Seriously, when will players start to adjust and take a little something off those free kicks from dangerous spots?)

If there was any lingering doubt in my mind, U.S. defender Jonathan Bornstein removed it during Tuesday’s press “round table,” where players mix and mingle with press in a fairly relaxed setting.

Major League Soccer (along with a couple of other leagues around the world) has used this exact ball since February. That’s when adidas introduced it, just in time for MLS training camps.

Bornstein said there were, in fact, some wide-eyed reactions when players began hitting this particular pelota.

“Actually, in preseason people were commenting on it,” Bornstein said. “It just wasn’t as publicly out there.

“It was like, someone would hit a shot and say that it really moved. You would see it and say, ‘Wow, the ball does move quite a bit.’ Then when we got here, I’d say the ball moved even more than in MLS.”

Everyone guesses that the difference is in the altitude. As Chivas USA, his team, has yet to play in the thin air ofColorado or Real Salt Lake, he had not tested the ball at altitude prior to South African arrival.

Bornstein did allow that players like himself, Landon Donovan, Robbie Findley and other MLS men don’t have the same adjustment period, since they’ve used the Jabulani for months now.

“Everyone’s gonna get used to ball, no matter what,” Bornstein said. “Everyone has to deal with it, so I don’t think it’s anything to complain about or to make a big deal about.”

Donovan had to be prodded a bit to offer an opinion, declining initially to wade into the politics of it all, the choice to introduce a new ball at this time. He said decisions about balls and such simply aren’t his to make. When asked again, he said he was “old school,” that he preferred old school shoes, shin guards, etc. (Now, as Donovan is only 28, I’m not so sure what, exactly, qualifies as “old school” …)

At any rate, he said, “I like what I know, so I’m not the right person to ask.”

Maybe, maybe not. Sounds a lot like America’s best player could do without the controversial new ball.

He said it’s hard to judge the flight of long balls and difficult to hit it properly in general. If you nail the small sweet spot, it’s going to launch, he said. If you don’t put the foot in just the right place, it may be a laugher.

“I think as much as the goalies are frustrated by it, I think the players are, too,” he said. “You’re seeing a lot of missed chances, a lot of crosses that are mis-timed or mis-played that would normally be goals, that are not going in.”