Real Madrid experienced a new situation last week : playing on artificial turf. The impressive Luzhniki Stadium and its host, CSKA Moscow, hosted Real Madrid in the last 16 of the Champions League.
La hierba artificial ha sufrido una evolución brutal estos últimos años.
Those of us who played in the 90s, when this surface started to become popular, know that 20 years ago, playing on artificial turf was very bad news. Nowadays, the synthetic surface on which football is played has nothing to do with what it was in the early days. In fact, many amateurs or grassroots players prefer to play on the new artificial grass rather than on natural grass: less laundry, fewer pitches in bad condition in winter, less maintenance for the clubs...
But... What have been the three stages of this evolution?
Stage 1. From the 1990s where all synthetic pitches were carpet with a very thick white powder coating on top that eroded even the kevlar.
Stage 2. A few years later, the white sand was replaced by rubber on the same turf, giving rise to the so-called 2nd generation of synthetic turf.
Stage 3. And relatively recently the 3rd generation of artificial turf has emerged. The length of the grass is increased to avoid any possibility of erosion and the internal substrate is improved to cushion footsteps and falls, improve ball bounce and water drainage. The rubber is barely visible and the aesthetics and sensations are already similar to natural grass. The best example of this artificial grass is the patented Field Turf system:
This type of turf has been installed at the Luzhniky stadium in Moscow where Real Madrid played last week's Champions League round of 16 match. UEFA has approved this grass for competitions at the highest level. All that remains to be done now is for FIFA to dare to play a World Cup on this surface:
But from last week's match there was something that particularly caught my attention. There is a Real Madrid player that either playing matches or training wears mixed boots: Cristiano Ronaldo.
As you all know Cristiano Ronaldo has been wearing the new Mercurial Vapor VIII for several weeks now, boots that will be released in a few weeks. That's why Nike ‘disguises’ the new boots as the Mercurial Vapor VII so that CR7 can already compete with them:
Upon arrival and seeing the state-of-the-art artificial grass, Cristiano trained in the previous session with Nike's new mixed sole. This mixed sole has been incorporated as standard in the Mercurial Vapor VIII at the express request of the Portuguese player:
Professional players are so specialised that it is difficult to make them change.... Especially for a match of this importance. So, with the referee's approval (surprising because in 3rd division no aluminium studs are allowed on synthetic turf under any circumstances) Cristiano Ronaldo played a Champions League match on artificial grass wearing boots with mixed studs:
In this picture you can even see the rubber jumping as the boot slides over the surface:
We have to get ready because artificial turf is being introduced in professional football and soon natural grass pitches will be a thing of the past. That's why I firmly believe that brands are already working on that. At the moment the norm is that AG soles are mounted on mid-range boots, but in a few years the specific boots for artificial turf will be the elite models.
