Puma PowerCat 1.12 SL – Black/White/Team Yellow

While the companies showed off their wares for the boots that will be debuted for the new season a month ago, Puma were very quiet during this period, only releasing the ‘Gravity’ PowerCat 1.12 after the EUROs. This might actually work out in Puma’s favour, because more focus can now be given to the second PowerCat 1.12 SL that have been released by the ‘Big Cat’, this time in a Black/White/Team Yellow colour way.

We were big fans of the White/Red/Limoges PowerCat 1.12 SL that was released prior to the EUROs, and we think Puma have outdone themselves with the first PowerCat 1.12 SL to be predominantly black. This colour way will also be released onto all of the PowerCat boots, so you can grab the same colour way on the regular PowerCat 1.12, a boot that we adored when we reviewed it a little while ago.

The Puma PowerCat 1.12 SL shares many features with the non-SL version. It’s still got the PST, which involves having two pieces of material with varying degrees of hardness. That is, the yellow material is harder to reduce any energy loss when kicking the ball, while the white part is a little flexible to help with curve. While we weren’t sure whether the flexible part actually helped at all, the PowerCat still lived up to it’s name when it came to power shots!

The boot still comes with a K-Leather upper for a nice soft touch, with a synthetic leather through the midfoot to aid stability. But this is where you’ll see one of the two differences between the PowerCat 1.12 and the 1.12 SL. The K-Leather upper is marginally thinner on the SL, which aids with keeping the weight of the boot down. Puma took a similar approach when making the Puma King SL.

While the regular PowerCat 1.12 has a TPU injected stud configuration, the SL has been injected with Pebax. The stud configuration is the same, Pebax has been used in several boots to keep the weight of the boot down. The Puma V1.11 and the Mizuno Morelia Neo are just two boots sporting the material that is actually lighter than TPU. There is also another difference between the PowerCat 1.12 and the SL with this colour way. Puma have made it easier to distinguish between the boots by colouring in the Puma logo yellow on the SL and black on the standard 1.12.

Expect to see PowerCat 1.12 stars such as Cesc Fabregas, Nemanja Vidic and Marco Reus (how brilliant is this going to look with his Borussia Dortmund kit?) in the boot in the coming weeks. What do you think of the latest Puma PowerCat 1.12 SL colour way?