In 2014 Nike overturned the way of how football boots were produced. The woven material was set to become the main material on the production of football boots and the shape of the boot would change as well by covering the ankle. This concept was well received from the begining from the professional players. And, as usual, we imitated the choiced of the pros.
Andrés Iniesta with the Magista Obra in Brazil World Cup 2014
But little by little some doubts started to come up. Some of Nike's flag ship players started to appear with modifications on their Dynamic Fit collars. Cristiano Ronaldo's were the first ones to reduce the length of the Dynamic Fit collar.In this case it was Nike's lab the one in charge of producing a model with a shorter collar. And it's been the same since a year ago when Ronaldo debuted with the Mercurial Superfly.
Ronaldo with his current reduced DynamicFit collar.
During this last pre season, Andres Iniesta, Magista flagship player, was the guilty of making the swoosh brand receive the first serious setback. After a bad experience in the World Cup and a bad start at the begining of La Liga, Iniesta's boots moved from the Magista Obra with Dynamic Fit with Flyknit to the Magista Opus which feature Kanga Lite material. Coincidence or not... Iniesta improved his performance on the pitch.
Andrés Iniesta pre-season 2015/2016 with FC Barcelona
But the biggest surprise would appear this summer. After watching Isco Alarcon training for several weeks with the Hypervenom Phantom 2 in a blackout version, becoming the big flagship player of the Hypervenom line. But after some games he would surprise by cutting of the Dynamic Fit collar from his Hypervenom boots. But not reduced in a professional way as what Cristiano Ronaldo gets with his boots, but in a handcrafted way. Probably by himself.
Isco Alarcón in Bayern-Real Madrid with reduced Dynamic Fit
And almost at that same moment, while Isco was destroying his boots, we saw Arturo Vidal debuting with Bayern Munich with a modified Mercurial Superfly but with something extremly weird: The left boot stays the same but the Dynamic fit collar of the right boot is cut off.
Arturo Vidal in Bayern Münich-Real Madrid with his customized Mercurial Superfly
Hard to explian this action.To avoid these reactions by the professional players, the brand has created a special Hypervenom Phantom II model for Neymar with a slightly lower Dynamic Fit collar. Neymar's boots feature a produced lower collar because it'd be too hard to see his flagship player cutting of the Dynamic Fit collar.
Lower Dynamic Fit collar for Neymar in FC Barcelona training sessions.
Do you want to know my opinion on all of this? Football is a sport where the players don't like too much to try new technologies. In sports like cyclingm a new bike or in swiming, a new swimsuit generated a lot of interest in the professionals. But it seems like in football it doesn't happen. If something is new, we tend to distrust at the begining. I can still hear comments like: there's nothing like the Copa Mundial. And yez, obviously those are amazing boots and performe really well. But it's time to move on. No one can imagine a basketball player wearing a shoe from 20 years ago or a Formula 1 pilor with tires from 1985.
If all the football players, who appear in this blog, gave a chance to the Dynamic Fi collar like Inista, pobably the most of them would keep using it. The key... The next generation of players. They will be more open minded to try out future advaces and technologies.
