The 2026 FIFA World Cup is already one of the most logistically ambitious tournaments in the sport’s history. Three host nations. Forty-eight teams. One official ball. And now, one very tiny, very gorgeous golden replica made from spare change.
Jewelry artist Soroush JWL recently released a video documenting his process of turning 50-cent Euro coins into a miniature version of the Trionda, Adidas’ official match ball for the 2026 FIFA World Cup. The result is exactly as compelling as it sounds: a palm-sized golden sphere that perfectly mirrors the Trionda’s distinctive flowing panel pattern. It shouldn’t work as well as it does, but it does.
Designer:
For those not yet deep in the World Cup rabbit hole, the Trionda is a ball worth knowing. Adidas unveiled it in October 2025, and its design carries real intention behind it. The name nods to the three host nations (Canada, Mexico, and the United States), while the curving four-panel form was inspired by “la ola,” the wave. It actually holds a small record: with only four panels, it’s the fewest a FIFA World Cup ball has ever used. Each panel carries iconography tied to a host country. A maple leaf for Canada. An eagle for Mexico. A star for the United States. The craftsmanship baked into the original ball already had layers of meaning long before Soroush got near it with his tools.
Which is probably part of what makes his replica so satisfying to watch take shape. He splits the coins down the middle, hammers each half into a custom mold, solders the halves together into a sphere, and then begins the painstaking work of hand-carving the Trionda’s twisting surface pattern directly into the metal. No CNC machine. No shortcuts. Just hands, tools, and a very deliberate commitment to getting every curve right.
I have a lot of appreciation for this kind of project because it does two things at once. It is a genuine craft exercise, the kind that demands patience and precision without any automated assist. And it is also a design exercise in disguise. To carve a pattern convincingly, you first have to understand it completely. Soroush had to deconstruct the Trionda’s geometry before he could reconstruct it at a fraction of its size. That level of attention to an object most people only interact with as background detail during a broadcast is, by itself, a kind of tribute.
Soroush JWL has built a following on exactly this kind of work. Previous projects have included a ring engineered to unfold into a bracelet through a series of interconnected scissor mechanisms, a miniature Aladdin’s lamp, and a bolt transformed into a sword. The common thread across all of it is a delight in transformation and an insistence on doing it by hand. His YouTube channel has grown to over 123,000 subscribers, and it is easy to understand why. Watching raw metal become something recognizable, even beautiful, hits a very specific satisfaction center in the brain that almost nothing else does.
More than the craftsmanship, though, it is the timing that makes this feel significant. The World Cup is one of those rare events that genuinely pauses the world for a few weeks and creates objects that carry collective memory. Jerseys. Stickers. Posters. The balls themselves. Soroush took one of those objects and translated it into something permanent and personal, a keepsake that will outlast the tournament by decades.
There is also something quietly ironic about the material choice. The Trionda is engineered for elite play, designed to perform under the highest standards of precision and durability on the world’s biggest stage. Soroush’s version will never see a pitch. It will sit in someone’s hand, catch the light, and make whoever holds it think about what it represents. In some ways, that is its own kind of performance. The World Cup is a design event as much as it is a sporting one. Soroush JWL just made a tiny, golden argument for that point.
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