There is currently a vast array of football-related products, including football boots, goalkeeper gloves and shin guards, amongst many others. One of the products that takes us the longest to choose – or at least should take us longer, as they are the main tool for performing our role on the pitch – is football boots. And that’s because, in today’s world of football boots, there are different types of soles, materials and ranges. All these details have a different impact on the final product we decide to buy. One thing we want to make clear from the outset is that more expensive boots aren’t going to make us better players. It’s true that they can help – and a great deal at that – when compared to lower-end ranges, thanks to technical features such as weight, higher-quality materials and specific technologies like ACC, Boost, Flyknit, Primeknit or Evoknit.
Given the economic importance of choosing the right boots compared to the rest of the kit we need to play football, we know that this decision is easier for some than for others. However, today’s post is for everyone, because we hope to help both those who are really looking to buy the perfect football boots and those who buy a pair without giving it too much thought.
How to choose the perfect football boots:
- What sort of boots are we actually looking for?
- How can we tailor our budget to our footballing needs?
- Do we prioritise price or quality?
- What sort of sole should we choose?
1. What sort of boots are we actually looking for?
Whether due to old myths or the exaggerated advertising by football boot brands, many of us believe that there really is such a thing as a specific boot for each position. Whilst this isn’t entirely true, it isn’t that far from the truth either, as we can see many players sponsored by major brands wearing boots specifically designed for their position on the pitch. However, we disagree with this idea, as we believe that when looking for boots, we should consider those that allow us to improve – or at least maintain – our playing style. A very clear example is the Nike Mercurial Superfly football boots, which are associated with great attacking players: fast and explosive footballers. But why can’t a goalkeeper wear these boots?
SL Benfica’s goalkeeper, Odisseas Vlachodimos, wears these boots – and he’s not a striker. Taking this example as a reference, let’s answer the question of which football boots we’re actually looking for. The Greek Benfica goalkeeper wears these boots because he feels more comfortable in lightweight, less structured boots that fit the foot very snugly. Whether it’s because he’s looking for better ball control thanks to his footwork or because it helps him stay more active when he needs it most, the fact is that both the Lisbon side’s goalkeeper and all of you should look for the boots that best enhance your skills on the pitch. If you’re quick and prefer boots that fit very snugly because you feel more comfortable in them, speed boots are the ones you should consider buying, such as the adidas X 19, Nike Mercurial or Puma Future. If your strength lies in ball control and passing, and you’re looking for more reinforced boots due to the movements you make on the pitch, you should opt for control boots, such as the Nike Tiempo, Nike Phantom VSN, adidas Predator, adidas Copa or Puma One. There are many more individual aspects of your game to which you can easily adapt your choice of the right boots.
2. How can we tailor our budget to our footballing needs?
Given the prices of top-of-the-range boots, we know all too well how difficult it is for a professional footballer in the lower leagues – and even for semi-professional and amateur players – to buy more than one pair of football boots per season. We often think only of the small budget we have and end up buying just one pair, which we then have to pray will last until the end of May. And why is that? Because the moment the boots we’ve been wanting come out, we end up buying the top-of-the-range model straight away and say goodbye to our entire budget for that football season. In many cases, we believe this is a mistake, as in the lower leagues it’s common to play on different types of pitch. Over the course of a season, we may encounter 3G artificial turf pitches, or even 4G (the latest generation, without the traditional black rubber granules), as well as natural grass pitches that are dry and/or extremely wet. It’s practically impossible for a pair of boots to last an entire season through training sessions and matches on different types of turf. In such cases, we should always bear in mind that it is sometimes much better to buy mid- to high-end boots (which are still considered professional-grade), such as the adidas 19.1 or the Nike Pro, as they are much more affordable. This little detail will mean we can buy another pair, so we’ll have one set of boots for natural grass and another for artificial turf.
3. Do we prioritise price or quality?
We’re convinced that many of you do pay attention to the price of football boots, but see it as a limiting factor due to their high cost. Have you ever wondered why top-of-the-range football boots can cost almost €300? The truth is that many of them do justify that price, thanks to their more exclusive design, the technologies they incorporate and the unique features they offer, which allow you to enjoy a top-class product in the best possible conditions for playing football. However, a higher price does not always mean better quality or, in this case, that they are simply better. Take laceless boots, for example. These boots are the most expensive and, in theory, the flagship product of the German brand adidas. However, not all players are able to play comfortably in this type of boot, as the laceless design can be somewhat uncomfortable, for example, for players with a higher instep. For this very reason, there are mid-to-high-end versions with laces which, being more affordable and featuring a different construction, are priced much lower than the top-of-the-range models and offer considerably better value for money.
4. What sort of sole should we choose?
which is very important and is directly linked to choosing the perfect football boots. Before buying our next pair of football boots, we should analyse the pitches on which most of our training sessions and matches will take place. Nowadays, with technology so advanced, we can access the football associations in each region and/or local authority and look up this information. This research will be very useful, as it will let us know what type of pitch we’ll be playing on most during a given season and, in this way, choose the right boots and the appropriate studs. We say this because we often already have a particular boot model in mind and have become attached to it, making it very difficult to change our minds. We admit that we’re like that too. However, thanks to the variety of boot models and sole types currently available to us, if we know which pitches we’ll be playing on most during a given season, we can tailor our budget for football boots to the requirements of each type of sole. We’d like to conclude this section by making it clear that Fútbol Emotion does not, under any circumstances, recommend using boots designed for natural grass (FG boots) on 3G artificial turf pitches, which are the most common in Portugal and much of the world. The so-called 4G or ‘latest-generation’ pitches are currently only found in countries in Central Europe, Northern Europe, the United Kingdom and North America. These pitches already combine the two types of grass and do not feature the traditional black rubber granules.
To conclude, we’d like to say that there’s no such thing as the perfect pair of football boots. What does exist are boots that best suit our needs on the pitch, such as our individual playing styles, the price, the overall quality of the product and, finally, how well they perform on a particular type of pitch. We hope this blog post will be helpful to many of you, and if you ever have any queries before buying your next pair of boots, please don’t hesitate to ask us – either right here in the comments section or via any of our social media channels.
