Replaying the Ball: Soccerane Revisited Josep Castells and Felix Sematosa University of Barcelona, 08028 Barcelona, Spain The fact that soccerane ("foothallane") is a semiregular polyhedrane and not a renular one induced us to assien i t a IUPAC systematic nami that is not the correct one (J. CHEM.EDUC.,60,941 (1983)). In the case of a semiregular polyhedron not only two or more equivalent Schlegel diagrams are possible (depending upon thenumber of different polygons present in it), hut two or more different "hamiltonian" pathways exist in such diagrams, which, defining the main ring, would lead to different IUPAC systematic names.
For the soccerane structure, the two possible Schlegel diagrams and the two different hamiltonian pathways are shown helow. In accordance with IUPAC rule A.32-31, the correct systematic name is the one in which the main ring is divided as symmetrically as possible and the superscripts locating the other bridges are as small as possible; i.e., the one from Figure 1. We wish to achowledge o w gratihide to Alex Nickon, Johns Hopkins University, for calling o w attention to this "fault", which we hope does not deserve more than one "penalty".
