After news of busted studs on my Nike CTR360 Maestri Elites, I was graciously sent a replacement pair albeit in the form of the Total90 Laser Elite. Within Nike Football’s marquee range, the Total90s in my opinion come across as the most “technically” advanced from a visual standpoint. Maybe more so when considering the overall aesthetics rather than just say the medial vs. lateral viewings cause it’s really the inside that has you really curious about the boot. But for that same “technical aesthetic”, I wasn’t really a fan of the way the boots looked from a colorway standpoint during the unboxing. White and orange with black just doesn’t seem to work all that well. Don’t get me wrong, for the most part (outside of Nike Football anyways), the color designers at Nike have been spot on. Maybe even an industry wide trend for footwear, I’ve seen some really dope colorways from a lot of brands in recent times. But something went astray with this colorway. But this is the same team that brought some horrendous debut colorways for the Total90 Laser in that god awful Electric Green/Black-Challenge Red colorway. Anyways, the colorway has grown on me needless to say, but maybe it’s cause at the end of the day, the medial side with the fins is not going to be seen all that often.
I was actually pretty excited to try this boot. Width wise I was under the assumption and based on some very limited past experience, that they would fit my wide feet. Looks are deceiving as oddly enough, the CTR360 Maestris fit wider so it seems. Or it could be that the fins on the instep are really preventing a lot of stretch that you get when you have a leather-esque material on BOTH sides of your foot. Maybe I should give Kanga-Lite more credit then cause the Maestris felt much better than the initial fitting of these Total90s. But at the cost of a fit with much less room for potential stretch, the medial side’s rubber fins are some serious business. It literally hurts to run your fingers along them and the way they are positioned, makes me wonder why adidas never adopted a similar route with their Predator vamps? It always seemed that the Predator vamps were everywhere but where you needed it, and that was along the side of the bigtoe where it joins the rest of your foot. Maybe they just fit funny on me, but Predators consistently missed covering that spot. I’m not sure what the black pods do though… the whole “ShotShield” has me a bit confused as to whether it represents both the pods and the vamps or just either/or.
Going to give them a run-out tonight and see how they go. The Total90 Elite and the Maestri Elite both share the same outsole, so let’s hope there aren’t any similar problems. But I have a feeling tonight will be painful.
-Eugene
