Eigil Nielsen is credited with creating the common 32-panel football design in 1962 using 20 hexagonal and 12 pentagonal patches. It quickly became popular when the Adidas Telstar in 1970 became the first football in the World Cup to use the design.
The 1970 ball (Adidas Telstar) is pretty iconic because it was specifically designed to be more visible on television broadcasts in the era when most viewers had black-and-white TVs.
So what one thinks of as the classic football/soccer ball, and indeed which is depicted as the ⚽️ emoji, is just the Mexico 1970 ball?
I found this on https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eigil_Nielsen_(footballer,_born_1918):
The 1970 ball (Adidas Telstar) is pretty iconic because it was specifically designed to be more visible on television broadcasts in the era when most viewers had black-and-white TVs.