Boot spotting: 4th June

There’s only 3 days to go until the EURO 2012 football tournament kicks off, and everyone is pumped up for it. Nearly all of the countries participating in this year’s tournament have played their final warm up games, and it’s come up with a number of interesting boot spots, with a lot of players changing their boots in time for the tournament. Soccer Reviews takes a look over the best boot spots from this weekend’s action.

Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal) – Nike Mercurial Vapor VIII

He’s the face of Nike’s ‘My Time Is Now’ campaign and the Nike Mercurial Vapor VIII, but CR7 made a rather surprising boot spot this weekend, as he walked out onto the pitch this weekend in his game against Turkey in the Sail/Soar Mercurial Vapor VIII colourway. He’s been wearing the ‘Clash’ Mercurial for the past few weeks, but he has changed over to the old colourway in his last training session last week and for his game against Turkey. We’ll keep an eye on Cristiano’s footwear come his first EURO 2012 game against Germany.

Danny Welbeck (England) – Nike Kanga-Lite T90 Laser IV

We noted in our last boot spotting that a reluctant Wayne Rooney wasn’t making the change to the ‘Clash’ collection T90 Laser colourway, it seems England and Manchester United team mate Danny Welbeck isn’t budging from the Soar/Black/Silver T90 Laser IV he ended the season with. It seems Nike have a difficult job with convincing the England team to switch to the ‘Clash’ collection, with not a single player in England’s starting XI wearing any of the ‘Clash’ boots in their game against Belgium.

Sergio Aguero (Argentina) – Puma EvoSpeed I

Who would have thought 12 months ago that Sergio Aguero would be win the EPL title for Manchester City and be the face of Puma’s new EvoSpeed range? It’s been a huge 12 months for the Argentine, and he wore the EvoSpeed I in his first professional game since his match winning performance for Manchester City against QPR a few weeks ago. Weighing in at a light 180 grams, Soccer Reviews will be getting it’s hands on the EvoSpeed in the next few weeks, so make sure you look out for that.

Eden Hazard (Belgium) – Nike Mercurial Vapor VIII

Eden Hazard has been one of the hot topics of the past few weeks. As he cast himself as one of the world’s best players in his long running saga of his transfer to Chelsea, his first game on English soil since his transfer to Chelsea saw the Belgium spectacularly booed as his name was read out at Wembley stadium. We’re going to see Hazard running on Stamford Bridge in the Mercurial Vapor VIII next season, a boot that fits the flashy young winger to the tee.

Federico Balzaretti (Italy) – Lotto Stadio Potenza Italy II 100

You really couldn’t make a football boot look any more Italian. Lotto’s new Lotto Stadio Potenza Italy II 100 in time for EURO 2012 would make any Italian proud to wear them, and it would look out of place if any other European footballer wore it with their kit. While the Lotto Stadio Potenza Italy II 100 got it’s debut in the Italian Cup final by Napoli’s Christian Maggio, we’re sure that a lot of Italians like Federico Balzaretti would love to be wearing Lotto’s latest creation.

Matthew Spiranovic (Australia) – Nike Mercurial Vapor VIII (Custom)

Australia faced a tough test prior to it’s Brazil 2014 World Cup qualification games, using it’s game against Denmark as it’s sole test before playing Oman and Japan over the next week. Matthew Spiranovic’s clumsy challenge on Daniel Agger allowed Denmark to open the scoring, but it was his boots that perplexed us. Multiple angles of the boot revealed that Spiranovic was wearing a pair of Mercurial Vapor VIIIs that he’s tried to black out himself. We would have given him full marks until we saw the scrappy job he did on the toe of the boot!

Pepe Reina (Spain) – Joma Total Fit

As their highest profile endorser, Pepe Reina gets some pretty special treatment from Joma in return for his services! While this included some very special boots that had the Liverpool shot stopper painted on the heel of a very limited edition pair of boots a few months back, we aren’t sure whether Reina is wearing an unreleased or customised pair of boots here. It’s not a colourway we’ve seen before, but it strangely matches his Spain training kit nicely!

Ognjen Vukojevic (Croatia) – Nike CTR360 Maestri II

Benoit Assou-Ekotto started up a bit of a craze last year when he wore two different pairs of football boots on his feet, and Croatia’s Ognjen Vukojevic is the latest player to follow in Assou-Ekotto’s footsteps. Ognjen Vukojevic wore two different coloured CTR360 Maestri IIs this weekend when Croatia took on Norway, wearing the Dark Shadow/Volt Maestri on one foot and the Blue/White/Blue boot on the other. We’ll be keeping an eye out to see whether Vukojevic keeps this up through the tournament!

That’s it for this week’s boot spotting. What was our favourite spot this week? Tell us your thoughts in the comments section below.