I've said several times that the even years are the best when it comes to football gear updates. Why? Easy, because those are the years when the World Cup and Euro Cup are played. Because at this moment the Copa America is not as strong as those two.
The big brands will use these tournaments as the date to release their latest updates. Brazil 2014 was one of the most intense summers with the launch of the Flyknit boots by Nike, the incredible Puma evoPOWER with the adapLITE material and adidas... Well adidas decided to bring he big suprise in 2015 with the BETHEDIFFERENCE revolution, by discontinuing te Predator, adipure, Nitrocharge and adizero lines.
We still have more than 7 months till the EURO CUP 2016 but we can start to see some cool things. Let's talked about the best of them.
CRISTIANO RONALDO ¿MERCURIAL SUPERFLY 5?
Probaly one of the most curious of all. The Portuguese player already classified his country for the EURO Cup and after a few vacation days he went back to training, but not with his regular boots, he did it with blackouts.
Ronaldo, training session 12/10/2015
We all know that Tiempo, Mercurial and Magista will soon jump to a next generation. The first one is about to be 2 years old and the other two are know year and a half old. These have been Nike's most successful boots. So we think they are developing a Mercurial Superfly V. And I say that it's a developing process because we will have to wait at least 6 months to see something new (not official, but those are my thoughts).
Cristiano Ronaldo's miterious outsole.
Can it be a new special silo designed exclusively for Cristiano Ronaldo? adidas did it with Leo Messi, who was a adizero player but now has an exclusive silo for himself, but to be honest it's most unlikely that nike will do the same with CR7. Basically because the Portuguese player already modifies his Mercurial all he wants. And also because I think Nike is thinking more on giving exclusivity to Neymar in the future, because he's younger and has a longer career ahead to release an exclusive line.
My bet. New Mercurial Superfly generation
Possible launch. May/June 2016
THOMAS MÜLLER ¿ADIDAS ACE 16?
When adidas launched the revolutionary collection, a few months ago, we were pretty sure that they would not just wait to see what would happend and certainly, a minute later after the ACE 15 y X15 launch they were already working on new generations. The X15 model, has received a better acceptance than the ACE 16 so we guess the X will take a bit longer to jump to the second gen. But it will happen, especially after seeing Tomas Müller (Bayern Munich) with those weird blackout prototypes.
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Thomas Müller training in blackout prototypes with Bayern Munich
First look you don't find a huge difference comparing to the current synthetic adidas X15. But if you take a closer look to the next picture you can see a big update: Where are the laces?
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Thomas Müller blackout prototype
When we talk about football boots it's hard to think that theres an element that has maintained the same for the past 50 years: the laces. An element that can bother some times, it's in the area in touch with the ball, it absorbs water it can feel too tight in occasions... but it seems like adidas wants do change this element, or remove them.
My bet. I would say it an adidas X16 prototype
Possible launch. May/june 2016.
JUAN MARTÍN HERNÁNDEZ ¿TIEMPO LEGEND VI?
For several weeks we've seen tons of Nike Tiempo players training with blackout prototypes for what probably is the VI generation of the Tiempo Legend. It started with Carvajal, like 5 months ago. And since then we've seen Varane, Piqué or Sergio Ramos (amog other players) training in what seems to be the next Tiempo Legend generation. 20 months since this silo received a modification, so that why we think it's the next gen. What's not logic is to see Juan Martín Hernández, rugby player, wearing what he was wearing this weekend.
Juan Martín Hernández Argentina-Namibia Rugby World Cup
You might not be a rugby fan, I'm not, but there were several Twitts talking about Juan Martín Hernandez and his boots. He is an Argentinian rugby player, playing the World Cp at this time. And this weekend we saw him playing with the Teimpo Legend VI and was not a blackout!
Possible Tiempo Legend VI colorway
Was this a mistake from Nike? from the player? or was it on purpose to start to get people talking about it? I would say it was one of the two first ones. But we now know some more things about the next Tiempo Legend generation, which seems less classic than what we've seen in the past.
My bet. Final Nike Tiempo Legend VI model.
Possible launch. Dicember 2015/January 2016.¿Despiste de Nike?
NEYMAR jr ¿HÍBRIDO HYPERVENOM - MERCURIAL?
From the very first moment we didn't see Neymar very comfortable with his new Hypervenom 2. This was so obvious that the past few week we could see him playing and training with the Mercurial Vapor. And that's a tough knowing that Neymar is the flag ship player for this silo and receives exclusive colorways.
Champions League game with Mercurial Vapor X
With another player we don't think nike would have had any problem to switch him the the Mercurial line. But when you've created an entire silo base on the brazilian player's characteristics... it's hard if he doesn't use it.
Neymar training with Mercurial-Hypervenom hybrid boot.
So Nike did what they had to do. They took the Mercurial Vapor, put the Hypervenom Phinish and an off centered laces system. What's surprising to me is that they took so long to do it because this can cause some serious doubts on Nike followers.
DANI ALVES ¿ADIZERO YAMAMOTO?
Mean while in the Dani Alves world... We've seen him too long with Nike boots bringing no trouble. But you guys probably know that he likes to stand out some times. And a few weeks ago we could see him with the adizero F50 Yamamoto.
Alves training with Barça and his adizero F50 Yoji Yamamoto
As you can see we've had some very interesting days. And get ready for more updates. The 2016 EURO CUP will bring some insane updates.
