Boot spotting: 13th August

One week to go! We are getting ever closer to the start of the new season, and while the EUROs attempted to fill the gap between the old season ending and the new season starting, there is nothing quite like the good old Premier League footy. The athletes are getting the footwear they will be wearing for the new season all set, which always provides us with boot spots. Take a look at what we saw this week.

Cristiano Ronaldo (Real Madrid) – Nike Mercurial Vapor VIII

It seems CR7 is not 100% sure about the boots he will be wearing once the season kicks off. Even though we saw him wearing the Seaweed Vapor VIII with a customised Vapor VII soleplate, he wore the Bright Mango Vapor VIII in his midweek match against AC Milan. Yet he switched back to the aforementioned Seaweed Vapor VIII this weekend against Celtic FC. We do expect Cristiano to make a permanent switch to the Seaweed Vapor VIII soon, but it is interesting how he is flirting with the two boots.

Senad Lulic (SS Lazio) – adidas adiPure 11Pro SL

While we have seen the occasional player in the original Black/White/Energy adiPure 11Pro SL, we have not seen any players in the White/Black/Gold colour way. Senad Lulic is the first player we have seen wearing the boots. adidas shocked everyone by deciding to release the adiPure 11Pro SL with a K-Leather upper, when the very same material was ditched on the adiPure 11Pro in what was said to be a weight reducing measure.

Wayne Rooney (Manchester United) – Nike T90 Laser IV KL

Prior to the start of last season, it was very rare to see Wayne Rooney not wear a synthetic upper T90. But it seems that the main man of the T90 range has had to adjust to the Kanga-Lite T90s that Nike have been releasing. Considering that we expect Nike to release only one more synthetic T90, we thought Rooney would be wearing the new Black/Orange/Blue T90 Laser IV. Instead, he has stuck by the White/Green ‘Clash’ T90 Laser IV KL during this pre-season.

Nigel De Jong (Manchester City) – Puma PowerCat 1.12 (Custom)

He may not be the main man behind the Puma PowerCat 1.12 range, he still gets the same benefits of being signed to the ‘Big Cat’ as fellow Puma wearer Cesc Fabregas. If you look closely, not only has De Jong got a Dutch flag on his boots, but he also has a customized sole plate. We did not find any issues with the sole plate of the PowerCat 1.12, so it interesting to note that the professionals are favoring customized sole plates.

Sven Bender (Borussia Dortmund) – Nike CTR360 Maestri III (Custom)

We have already seen Jay Spearing a few weeks ago show us his interesting take on a customised pair of CTR360 Maestri IIIs, but Sven Bender has shown us the proper way to black out a pair of boots. We think Sven Bender’s blackout boots look absolutely fantastic, and there is no hints of what colour way the boot may have been before it was blacked out. Nike do not traditionally release full blackout versions of their boots, but we would love Nike to maybe think about releasing something like this.

Aleksandr Samedov (FC Lokomotiv Moscow) – adidas miCoach F50 adiZero

When we unveiled the Silver/Red/Black miCoach F50 adiZero a few weeks ago, we found out that this would not only serve as the UCL colour way of the boot, but it would also be Messi’s trademark colour way that no other adidas sponsored athletes can ‘wear’ until October. We knew it would be a matter of time until someone would wear Messi’s special boots, and FC Lokomotiv’s Aleksandr Samedov has got his hands on the boots that are definitely not for the faint hearted.

Jumpei Kusukami (Kawasaki Frontale) – Asics

We do know of a few football boots that are exclusive to the Far East football market, and considering the Asics did originate in Japan, it would not be much of a surprise to us if they produced a few football boots that would only be available to the Japanese football boot market. We have never seen Jumpei Kusukami’s pink Asics anywhere before, and we cannot even identify the actual model of his boots. Can any of our readers fill us in on the details of the boot?

Christian Terlizzi (Pescara) – Nike Total 90 Laser II

Man the T90 Laser range has changed from the second release of the series t to the T90 Laser IV that we know today. While the concept of the boot is still the same, the ‘technology’ in the boot has shrunk in size from the Total 90 Laser II to the T90 Laser IV we know today. Christian Terlizzi is wearing the launch colour way of the boot, which was made famous in the ‘Put It Where You Want It’ Nike advertising campaign.

Raul Jimenez (Mexico) – adidas Predator LZ

Were Mexico the party poopers for Brazil? Probably, as Brazil were yet again denied a gold medal in the Olympic Games final of the football by a Mexico outfit. It sent the Mexicans into raptures both at the final in Wembley and back in their homeland. Amongst the celebrations, we caught Raul Jimenez wearing the new DB Predator LZ. The only other athlete we have seen so far in the boot besides Beckham is Henri Lansbury. We wonder how many more athletes we are going to see in the trademark Beckham boot.

That is it for this week’s boot spotting article. What was your favourite spot this week? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.