Ahead of the 2000–2001 season, the American brand launched one of the finest footballs in living memory and named it ‘Merlin’ – a fittingly magical name for a league that boasted a host of stars, including a young man called Thierry Henry and a ‘Red Devil’ known as David Beckham, amongst others.
That ball featured 26 panels stitched together in multiple layers, which helped it retain its shape and provided an elegant and effective flight, characteristic of the cutting-edge materials Nike always works with. The design was inspired by the Premier League itself, featuring its classic logo and small gold details scattered across the surface. This ball is regarded as one of the fastest and most accurate in history, as 992 goals were scored with it that season. Drawing on this inspiration and to mark the 20th anniversary, Nike is now launching, in 2019, an extremely limited reissue of that epic round friend.
The new ball is not like some replicas that simply copy the design; rather, it adapts the design to modern technologies. It uses the same polyurethane for the upper section, which improves touch, whilst also retaining the stitching details and the internal foam that helps cushion impacts. As a result, we have an almost exact replica of the ball from that era.
As a special touch, it features a crown print that pays homage to the previous ball, whilst retaining the full essence of the Premier League across its entire surface. As you can see, it comes in special packaging, which is essential for this sort of reissue. Only 600 of these balls will be produced, and they will be very, very hard to come by.
In that legendary season, Manchester United clinched the Premier League title, scoring plenty of goals and using one of the best match balls. Now, in 2019, we’ll see if the Premier League Merlin ball can rack up that staggering number of goals and live on in the memory just as the old Merlin did. For now, for all you nostalgic souls like me, we’ve got this remake, which is simply brilliant.
