I was in a rush to get home to grab my gear for a game on Monday night and as I opened my front door, I just had a hunch I was going to be even later for kick-off. I quickly made short work of the packaging to crack open that familiar orange Nike box. I’d rank the Nike Tiempo Legend IV Elite as some of the best looking boots in recent memory. Of course the buttery soft leather doesn’t hurt the package either as I’ve essentially called it quits on most synthetic boots due to difficulties in fit. But having said that, Nike time after time nails the aesthetics meets performance card. Unassuming technology beneath an absolutely gorgeous boot is the best way to describe these… and I hate using overly graphic words to describe inanimate objects. Despite the relatively understated aspect of the overall design, they just exude class.

Some quick notes:

• After handling a few pairs of ridiculously light boots, I’m sort of desensitized to what’s “lightweight”, they don’t give me the same wow feeling as the first Elites I picked up, but that’s fine. After playing in adiZero Primes, nothing really comes close.
• The quilted stitching applies only to the outstep and is meant to prevent over-stretching, curious to know why the outstep was preferable rather than instep.
• Comes with black laces, will probably swap out the orange ones as they’re much too flashy for me.
• The Flywire is faintly visible but the execution is cool due to the little visible strands.
• Wore them for about an hour or so, initial thoughts were heel slip (no heel counter might be the issue) and a bit of pressure at the big toes.
• However I’m much more confident (relative to past experiences) these will fit better as time goes on. I would say they fit relatively wide, no pressure on the sides.
• Only comment on the design are the parallel lines on the heel, I think if they joined, it would have looked better.
• The boot bag has been slightly downgraded, it’s a very thin nylon now, but no big deal.

That’s about it for now, I tried my best to shoot the images as fast as I could so I could wear them that night and I think the images reflect that a bit with the composition and exposure. I was running out of room shooting with the new lens. Thanks a lot to the usual suspect Tim for the hook-up.

-Eugene