Boot spotting: 5th March

Not a weekend goes by without it being full of action and controversy, and this weekend was no exception. Not only that, it served up a number of cracking boot spots! Come with us as we show you the best boot spots from the EPL to the K-League and everything in between! Which spots made it through our stringent screening process this week?

Jordan Henderson (Liverpool) – Nike CTR360 Maestri II

Jordan Henderson has been wearing a pair of CTR360 Maestri II football boots in training for the past few weeks, and Henderson has picked this weekend’s game against Arsenal as the first time to wear CTR360 Maestris in a competitive game. Henderson used to wear another control boot, the Umbro Geometra Pro, so Henderson has decided to stay within the Control boot silo in his selection of the CTR360 Maestri.

Amauri (Fiorentina) – Nike Mercurial Vapor VII

Even though you’d think that most professionals go for top of the range football boots, the controversial SenseStud on the Superfly III has meant a lot of professionals have a customised soleplate on the base of their boots. Santana, however, wears the lower scale Vapor VII, which features a more basic stud configuration than the Superfly III. Plus it seems Nike had Fiorentina in mind when they created the Midnight Purple Mercurial colourway!

Mark Little (Peterborough) – adidas adiPure IV SL (Custom)

Blackout football boots often take a little time to decipher, but the gold coloured studs on the bottom of Little’s boots have nudged us towards his boot being a blacked out version of the adiPure IV SL. The adiPure IV SL was one of the stand out releases of last year, and it led to a race between the companies to create the best lightweight K-Leather boot. The blacked out adiPure IV SL is a great match with Peterborough’s away kit, and it’s easy to see why Little has blacked out his boots!

Gael Clichy (Manchester City) – Umbro GT II Pro

Jordan Henderson wasn’t the player wearing Umbro boots who changed their boots this week. Gael Clichy has been a long time wearer of the Stealth II Pro, and one of the only remaining EPL players actually wearing the boot. He joined fellow full-back Kyle Walker this week and wore the GT II Pro for the first time in a competitive game. Soccer Reviews expects to get it’s hands on the Umbro GT II Pro in the coming weeks, so take a look out for that!

Alberto Paloschi (Chievo) – adidas miCoach F50 adiZero (Custom)

There are times when you just can’t find that colourway in the boot you want that suits you. Which is why adidas made miadidas. Alberto Paloschi did just that as he made his own White/Blue/Red miCoach F50 adiZero. It looks a lot like the White/Black/Red miCoach F50 adiZero that has just been released, but Paloschi has replaced the black SprintWeb with a blue one.

Louis Parfait (Ascoli) – Nike Mercurial Vapor Superfly III

We’ve said it time and time again, it’s the classiest Superfly III colourway we’ve seen in a long time, yet the player uptake of the White/Blue/Volt Superfly III hasn’t been the best. Since it’s a CR7 exclusive colourway, nearly every Nike endorser is forced into the Midnight Purple colourway. However, Louis Parfait has managed to pick up his own pair of White Superfly IIIs, and it’s a great match with his Ascoli kit!

Adam Hammill (Middlesborough) – adidas Predator adiPower SL

Even though the Predator adiPower is the lightest regular release Predator ever released, the adiPower SL features a SprintSkin upper which makes it the perfect mix of speed and pace, plus it’s even lighter than the regular adiPower! Predator adiPower SL spots are normally very rare, but this is the first time we’ve spotted a player in the Phantom/Warning edition of the boot, plus the warning coloured toe makes it stand out on the pitch!

Akihiro Ienaga (Ulsan Hyundai) – adidas Predator adiPower

Nearly every professional footballer goes for either a FG or SG stud configuration for their boots. However, it’s not too often that we see a professional with HG football boots like Akihiro Ienaga of Ulsan Hyundai in the Korean K-League. We aren’t too sure why Ienaga has gone for the HG version of the adiPower, but HG are a lot more popular in Japan and Korea than they are in the rest of the world.

Jaroslav Plasil (Bordeaux) – Nike Mercurial Vapor V

In the month where the Mercurial Vapor VIII gets released (woops), it’s only fitting to feature a retro Mercurial spot from the days where the Mercurial Vapor was the dominant speed boot on the market and the boot everyone wanted. The Black/Yellow Vapor V has gone down as one of the more popular Mercurial colourways of all time, and it’s good to see Nike will be relaunching a similar colourway on the Vapor VIII later this year.

Daniel Bragg (Gold Coast) – adidas adiPure 11Pro SL

Many of us were sceptical of the adiPure 11Pro when it was revealed that adidas replaced the forever popular K-Leather upper with Taurus leather. Adidas then made the popular decision of decking out the lighter adiPure 11Pro SL with K-Leather, making it the lightest K-Leather boot ever. Daniel Bragg made himself the first player in our boot spotting articles to wear the adiPure 11Pro SL, even though we thought the K-Leather upper would see a fairly large player uptake.

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