(I stare at emails all day, I still love reading people’s hand-writing, even however ugly it is… haha)
I don’t really think synthetic boots got popular until the Mercurial from Nike back in the late 90s, in fact I don’t think anybody even dropped a synthetic model back in the day up until the Mercurial. Awesome Brazil-inspired colorway aside from the original (fat) Ronaldo Nike Mercurials, I was never all that interested in non-leather boots. I was brought up in a camp where you wore boots that were probably 2 sizes too small in the width (but fine in the length) and you were meant to tough it out until your boots stretched. You were allowed various techniques to get them to fit faster like wearing them in the shower etc. Overall, I was also under the understanding that synthetic boots weren’t going to stretch as much as leather, but in reality, stretch/mold whatever you want to call it really is a subjective term. If you can get your foot into the boot and lace them up, I’m pretty sure in this day and age, the boot WILL eventually fit. This was the case with a pair of adidas F50i Tunits. There are many positives to synthetics, lighter weight, better abrasion resistance and they don’t drink the water as prominently as their leather counterparts meaning you don’t get soggy feet as quickly. But when it rains, your boots will get wet regardless so not really a strong point in my opinion.
Anyways, to the topic at hand, among Nike’s newer football/soccer boots, the CTR360 MAESTRI. The boot is in my opinion the best looking boot on the market. The color blocking is dope and the debut colorway seen here is totally on-point. Regardless of if the Black/Red is a safe bet, it’s much better than the white/yellow of the adidas Predator X. The boots main selling point in my eyes was the Kanga-Lite upper which is synthetic in nature but created to mimic the desirable properties of kangaroo leather which includes its touch and ability to stretch… now you sort of see where I was coming from with the opening paragraph. Other features which really are of no relevance to me include some zones on the outsept for a better touch and some rubber instep crap for better passing. Man if you can’t hit a clean, accurate pass with your instep, you better go back to the drawing board on technique, c’mon it’s the easiest pass to make in football. I don’t mind a lot of these techs incorporated though, cause unlike most Nike performance products, none of these techs are actively promoted all that much. I suppose this boot is meant to be compared more so to the adiPure from adidas rather than the Predator but when the time comes for review I’ll make the comparison anyways.
I’m about to leave out the door in the next 15 minutes and I’ll give this a first run-out tonight and probably a few more to see how they perform. Straight onto the foot, they feel ok. Not Predator X good cause the X’s are a bit wider. The construction and quality is really good. Maybe you don’t get that high-quality feel with the Kanga-Lite that you get with leather but the stitching all matches up really well etc. Heel counter is really solid.
Thanks to Tim Yu (seen back in August) who recently took on a role at Nike Football/Soccer & Action Sports for hooking it up. I’m excepting some big things from Tim who previously cut his teeth over at Cool Hunting. Big corporations need heads that know what’s up cause the old guard mostly doesn’t get it still.
Comes with a card to sign-up at NikeSoccer.com to learn some new skills as taught by various top Nike-endorsed pro clubs. Yes I need to add to my lowly keeper repertoire of moves.
This aspect of the breakdown was really well done, from a printing/explanation perspective.
