That football and the Spidercam cable (England vs Norway : World Cup 2026)

[GM4AJK]

Yes, I'm going there; someone on MB had to. I nearly posted this in the "Skydentify" forum as it seems to be yet another case of teasing information out of 6 pixels. But here we go.

In the quarter-final between England and Norway, it's claimed that moments before England's goal, the ball struck a cable supporting the Flying SpiderCam. Everyone (and I actually mean the Twitter/X crowd) is focused on an apparent change in the direction of the ball's flight after the goal kick is taken, a change I myself can't seem to see. However, as with all "close-quarter" after-the-fact analysis, there appears ot be a glaring omission in everyone's thoughts. If the cable is supporting the Spidercam, where is the Spidercam? Surely it must be below the ball's height if the ball hits a cable. Yet we can all see the ball, yet there's no Spidercam in any video I've watched.

Can the astute MB observers find the SpiderCam? And, despite FIFA releasing the ball sensor data (laughable graphs anyway) the one thing FIFA have not released is video taken from the SpiderCam itself, which I assume (never assume!) at goal kicks it lifted as high as it'll go to avoid contact and get the best panoramic view. Can anyone shed any light on that piece of speculation from me? Does anyone know what the SpiderCam does at goal kicks?

 

[MyMatesBrainwashed]

Everyone (and I actually mean the Twitter/X crowd) is focused on an apparent change in the direction of the ball's flight after the goal kick is taken, a change I myself can't seem to see.

I think what people are referring to (I could be wrong) is around 7 seconds in the FIFA media video from behind the goal (where the freeze frame is taken), the ball appears to make quite a deflection to the right as it falls. It's near the edge of the top tier stadium at that point (and travels up, in view, in quite a straight line), but gets much further right than that when the ball drops.

I'm of the opinion it's more to do with camera angle than ball's trajectory, but I'm just trying to help people see what others are talking about.

 

[GM4AJK]

So I found where the SpyderCam was actually a few moments after the ball landed, and Google's AI, along with the stadium dimensions and the way the SpyderCam is rigged, says it's impossible for the ball to have struck a cable. Here's where I found the SpyderCam (highlighted by the red circle):-

Here's the video this image was taken from: