Half heartened friendlies, games between football’s giant teams a long, long way from where they are normally played, it has to be pre-season football. But pre-season football means one thing to us at The Instep, and that is interesting boot spots. We have some cracking boot spots this week. Plenty of custom boots, boot switches, this week’s spotting is a must read. Kick start your Monday with our low down of this week’s action.
Cristiano Ronaldo (Real Madrid) – Nike Mercurial Superfly IV (Custom)
Real Madrid are in the middle of the International Champions Cup in Melbourne, but I do not have a clue why they are here. It is summertime in Europe, yet it is a crisp 1 degree in the mornings here as I type this. I know where I would rather be….anyway, Ronaldo wore a rather unexpected boot for Madrid’s friendly against Roma, as he brought out the old Electric Green Superfly IV, complete with his custom Dynamic Fit Collar. It is surely a temporary switch from the Portuguese superstar, but we are sure Nike will not be too happy seeing their man in the old colourway.
Samir Nasri (Manchester City) – Nike Tiempo Legend V (Custom)
So this one has us scratching our heads a little bit. Despite being one of the faces of the New Balance range last season, Samir Nasri wore a blackout version of the Nike Tiempo Legend V during Manchester City’s pre-season friendly against sister club Melbourne City. Blackouts normally point the sign to one thing in the boot world, we could be seeing an out of contract Nasri making the switch to Nike. New Balance would surely try and convince the Frenchman to do otherwise to ensure they do not undo all the rapport they would have built up last season with Nasri, but this is a boot situation we will certainly be keeping an eye on over the coming weeks.
Theo Walcott (Arsenal) – adidas X15.1 (Custom)
Arsenal is currently spending their pre-season in Asia, and Arsenal dispatching Everton to win the Barclays Asia Trophy. A good sight for Arsenal fans would have been Walcott scoring his side’s first goal of the game, which came about thanks to some terrific work by Santi Carzola. But we are here to look at Walcott’s boots, who is wearing a heavily modified X15.1. The winger does not seem to be a fan of the new boot, as he is effectively wearing an F50 adiZero painted over in X15.1 colours. That is, his boots feature a Sprintframe outsole and HybridTouch upper whilst ditching the Techfit Collar and X-Cage. The boots are extremely well camouflaged, but the subtle differences are there to see.
Francesco Totti (Roma) – Nike Tiempo Legend V (Custom)
Talking about a player who has serious demands when it comes to the boots on his feet, Totti has always been known for wanting his trademark fold-over tongue when it comes to his boots. Nike launched it into the mainstream last season when they released the limited edition Totti-inspired Tiempo, but Nike have since made Totti move on to the more recent grey Tiempo V. But as always, the Italian maestro has had his boots finished off with a fold-over tongue. We have a feeling that we will see Totti wearing these boots for quite a while, a part of me just cannot see Totti wearing the green Tiempo V launched in the new Lightning Storm pack….
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