If you were asked "what is the biggest evolution in football boots?", most of you would probably say the high boots we saw for the first time in 2014.
It's also likely that many of you are too young to remember what I consider to be the biggest change in football boots. It happened in the late 90s. And it wasn't made by the legendary German brand that has been associated with football all its life. Nor was it the American multinational that had just entered the game in 1994 with an incredible marketing strategy.
It was a Spanish brand. At the end of the 1990s, Joma dared to produce coloured boots in a sport where all shoes were black.
The founder of the brand, Fructuoso López, has always been a market visionary and believed that with the variety of leather dyes on the market, it was possible to make coloured boots. Leather was dyed for street shoes? Why couldn't there be coloured football boots?
Fructuoso López himself designed the first coloured boots. The first boot in a colour other than black was made in white. The result was disappointing: no shop dared to buy them. Joma had to give a few free pairs to the most important shops to put in their windows. And also to start working with professional footballers. Alfonso Pérez, Betis player and striker for the Spanish national team, was the first to dare to use them in professional football.
Alfonso was not superstitious and had no problem wearing them. However, there were some curious anecdotes, such as a coach who ordered him to take them off or tried to convince him to take them off. The brand also had to face a lot of criticism, even from the sports press. There are things that never change, changes scare us from the start. And our initial reaction is always to attack them instead of making an effort to appreciate them.
But at Euro 2000 something happened that changed everything. With Spain practically eliminated in the group stage, Alfonso with his white Joma on his feet scored a goal in stoppage time against Yugoslavia that qualified Spain for the quarter finals and the trend changed. The image of Alfonso's goal and the celebration was an icon of that summer of 2000. Footballers began to accept this colour of boots, shops were ordering Joma Alfonso boots and even the press began to highlight them. Colour had arrived in football.
Although the consecration came in the year 2000, Joma had already made progress in the manufacture of coloured boots. A young man from La Mancha who had just signed for Real Madrid played in the 1998 Champions League final in red boots. Fernando Morientes had gone one step further. Real Madrid won the 7th European Cup in Amsterdam with Fernando Morientes in the starting eleven and the football world was beginning to normalise the presence of coloured boots in professional football.
The explosion of big brands and the aggressive marketing strategies of multinationals have pushed Joma into the background. Joma does not deserve to be relegated to the background because of the quality of the product and the desire to innovate. On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the brand, Joma football boots promise to take a giant step forward to regain ground and become a reference brand in the manufacture of football boots.
