David Beckham unveils a new look based on an old character

Adidas football boot favourite David Beckham flew into London last night to collect a shiny award, but left everyone stunned at his choice of hairstyle as he displayed a cut fashioned in the style of cartoon character TinTin.

Beckham made it clear that he had no regrets over his time at Real Madrid, citing working with Zinedine Zidane as a highpoint of a glittering career. Most observers see this as the last chance for Beckham and it looks like even he now realises that the dream could soon be over…

Adidas Win Image Rights of Lionel Messi

Barcelona star and Adidas +F50 TUNiT football boot wearer Lionel Messi has been in the news this week as a court case over the Argentine’s image rights has been won by Adidas over arch rivals Nike. Messi signed with Nike when he was 14 years old, but two years ago rejected Nike’s £120,000-a-year offer to switch to rivals Adidas for a reputed £400,000 a year endorsement deal, which has seen the young Argentinean at the forefront of Adidas’ recent campaigns.

Messi clearly holds no bad-feeling to Nike football boot wearers, as he lines up beside Nike’s flagship player Ronaldinho at Barcelona each week, but this friendship could shortly be curtailed as there has been furious speculation this week of an impending move out of Barcelona to Inter Milan, whilst his team mate Ronaldinho is thought to be about to move to AC Milan!

View Lionel Messi in the Adidas Impossible is Nothing Campaign Video in our new video section.

Nomis’ Mix of Style and Cutting Edge Technology Reflected in their New 2007 Football Boot Range

Football boot maker, and producer of the innovative wet control system, Nomis has released details of the its football boot product range for 2007. The range will be initially available only in Australia, the home of Nomis, but a selection will be available in Europe after July 1st 2007.

The range features football boots incorporating Nomis’ nomud, wetcontrol and dual control technologies, and includes 21 adult, 9 women’s and 11 junior style football boots.

We’ll bring you more Nomis News as we get it!

See more Nomis 2007 Football Boots images.

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Perry Pitches in with a Forthright Assessment of the England Players and Manager

Former Arsenal legend, and friend of Footy-Boots, Perry Groves has given us his verdict on England’s performance against Andorra in the Euro 2008 qualifiers. England won against the part-timers, but their manner of victory was hardly emphatic, and coach Steve McClaren has been targetted as the culprit and mastermind of England’s downfall.

Perry was not exactly impressed by the lack of movement and urgency by the England players saying, “Whoever keeps tying their laces together needs to pack it in!”. Even Steven Gerrard comes in for a Perry pounding, “Get Gerrard to take his rollerskates off,” added the cult hero.

Perry Groves on Steve McClaren
Finally Perry turned his fury onto England coach Steve McClaren, who came in for some Perry Groves treatment earlier in the season (Read the Story) with a scathing attack that sums up the mood of a majority of England supporters.

“Steve McClaren? Give him one massive free boot out of the door.” adding “Boot McClaren out and stick him in a car boot sale!”. On Wednesday night’s performance the boot sale could well be McClaren’s next pitch!

Let us know if you agree with Perry Groves or not.

Read more Perry Groves Articles

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England Manager Steve McClaren Under Fire, Under Pressure and Under Achieving

Steven Gerrard showed his class as his one man act helped England in an insipid win over pub-team Andorra last night in Barcelona. England’s beleaguered fans were calling for Beckham’s return and McClaren’s head on a plate at half time as the score remained goalless, and the thought of a draw against lowly Andorra suddenly looked like a reality for a team ranked 6th in the World. McClaren had rung the changes through the team, but again could not inspire his men to raise their game to a level slightly above terrible. At the post match interview moody McClaren answered just two questions before announcing in a crackling voice “Gentlemen, if you want to write whatever you want to write, you can write it because that is all I am going to say. Thank you.”

England 3 Andorra 0

Before the game Frank Lampard was declared fit to play after his wrist injury, but stayed on the bench, while the team sheet gave the name of the left-back as Assley Cole - to which Cole lived up to by playing like a donkey throughout the game. On the pitch Steven Gerrard, wearing the Adidas Predator Absolute football boots, scored twice and new boy David Nugent, who was wearing the Umbro X Boot II, grabbed the last goal. We did notice Owen Hargreaves has yet to wear the Nike football boots since he has signed with them, as he has continued to wear the Adidas Predator Absolute since we reported the story (Read the story here).

Our Verdict:
When a team of world class players fails to perform, then the manager must stand tall and be a man, not crack at the first sign of criticism and flounce away in a red-faced huff. The fact remains the manager is judged by the performance of his players on the pitch - if they don’t perform well it is down to him - maybe the step up to international management was too big an ask for the ex-Middlesbrough boss, who is clearly having difficulty extracting world class performances from his team of highly paid donuts. As the fans quite eloquently sang at the end “We want McClaren out.” Ditto.

Puma Ties up the Italians and Looks to Pounce on Umbro

A busy time for football boot maker Puma this week, as it has announced that its sponsorship with the Italian Football Association will continue until after 2014. Puma has sponsored the current World Champions since 2003, and the extension of the deal sees Puma confirmed as the technical sponsor of all on-field, sideline, training and representation apparel and equipment through the upcoming Euro 2008 and World Cup 2010 and past the 2014 World Cup Finals.

Reports have linked Puma with a take-over of English football boot maker and England team sponsor Umbro this week, which would see Puma, the world’s 3rd largest sportswear company, consolidate its market position behind the big two of Nike and Adidas. Puma, who are worth £3.25 billion, look strong enough to devour Umbro, and could pick up the X-Boot III maker as an easy kill for around the £250 million mark.

Cheap Adidas Football Boots anyone?
We could soon be buying our Adidas football boots a lot cheaper, as sporting retail king Mike Ashley has just bought 3% of Adidas. Ashley is the founder of Sports Direct International, and is on a mission to create the largest sports retailer in the world. He dipped into his bulging wallet (he made £929 million when he floated his company) to take a chunk out of Adidas, who are spearheaded by David Beckham, which will help Adidas out as they are still struggling to come to terms with buying Reebok last year!

Nike and Adidas Merger Rumours
The quiet man of the three this week has been Nike, the largest and wealthiest of the bunch. Nike could well launch an ambush of its own, as they have been rumoured to be about to take over Adidas. That would be an amazing story but we are not sure we are ready for a Nike-Adidas combination (imagine a Predator Tiempo) just yet!Do you think this would be good or bad for football boots?

England players have been on the defensive this week ahead of the crunch game with Andorra after a dismal performance against Israel left fans chanting “you are not fit to wear the shirt” and calls for the head of coach Steve McClaren to be served up on a plate.

Much has been made of the salaries of the England players, topped up by tasty football boot and other commercial endorsements, and a look at the England camp’s car park shows a wealth of riches on display. Fans can’t understand why the players play like baby Bentley’s for their clubs yet on the pitch for England play like their back ends have gone!

England Players and Their Cars

Here are some cars of the stars: at the back, John Terry leads the line with a Bentley Continental and a BMW X5. Alongside him, Rio Ferdinand also has the Bentley Continental with Jamie Carragher in a Range Rover. Gary Neville chugs along in his Robin Reliant (we think!).

In midfield Defoe has the Range Rover with Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard going for Aston Martins proving they can at least gel together off the pitch.

Up front for England, Wayne Rooney has an Aston Martin (amongst his vast collection), whereas Andy Johnson prefers to ride an old bike. We thought it would be the other way round!..(allegedly).

If the England team forgets to wear its scoring football boots expect McClaren to be driving off straight into the local job centre and the players to take the fast lane to the scrap heap.

Read more Footy Boot News from the Blog.

Footy Boots Kicks Off in Style with a New Website

Footy Boots is proud to announce the arrival of its new and updated website, the all-new Footy-Boots.com with a fresh design and giving a fresh look into the world of football boots.

We have listened to your feedback and hopefully have come with a site that still gives you the latest Football Boot news, but also features videos, special offers and heaps of other stuff that our techies are still beavering away on…

Leave us a comment to let us know what you think, what you like, what you don’t like and what you would like to see in the new and improved Footy-Boots.com

Adidas Put the Boot into Nomis

Big time boys Adidas have taken a swing at Australian football boot maker Nomis following adverts and promotional material released by Nomis in January. The adverts made claims that clearly riled Adidas, and Nomis have held their hands up and apologised.

Fair enough for Adidas to be protecting its interests, but was it a case of sour grapes as they lost Harry Kewell in a well reported defection (Read the Footy Boots article) away from a big money contract to a smaller football boot maker? Adidas have been around a long time, and healthy competition from smaller companies is all part of the game.

As we see the large football boot makers getting larger and fatter from profits and sales, we at footy boots hope that they don’t go down the route of other markets where any competition is either bought out and diluted or financially clubbed to death by the might of the multinationals. We believe that the smaller companies like Nomis do a great job in moving the football boot market forward and they produce great football boots - so on this one we’re backing Nomis all the way!

View the www.nomisfootball.com and www.shopnomis.com websites.

Read more Nomis Football Boot articles.

Wayne Rooney Takes His Frustration Out on his Football Boots

A dire performance by England in Israel over the weekend saw the team extend their goal drought to 4 competitive games as they struggled to convert their superior possession (72%) into goal-scoring opportunities over clearly inferior opposition. Dreadful performances by several key players throughout the team (Neville, Lampard, Ferdinand, Johnson) summed up the game, but it was Manchester United striker Wayne Rooney that had to bear the brunt of criticism after the match from England coach Steve McClaren.

McClaren Mouthes Off and Rooney Roars Back

Reports say a furious McClaren blasted Rooney for under-performing for England, and claimed he had not delivered the goals since Euro 2004. Rooney is said to have taken the bait and responded with equal venom, venting his anger on his Nike Total 90 Supremacy football boots - indignantly hurling them against the wall in disgust.

Rooney’s response that he is not the only player responsible for scoring goals was a valid point, but the stats speak for themselves: Rooney hasn’t scored in a competitive soccer match for England since the 2004 European Championship. Rooney had a particularly bad game against Israel, displaying signs of his petulance, frustration and immaturity that are seldom witnessed when he wears a Manchester United shirt and failing to produce any sort of striking partnership with equally awful Andy Johnson.

Wayne Rooney Football Boot Damage

There is no word yet on the damage inflicted by Rooney on his football boots but they may be in for a rest anyway, if McClaren dares to drop the pug-faced striker for Wednesday’s crucial tie against Andorra. But is it fair to drop just Rooney, or should McClaren wield the axe a little wider and into the heart of the under-performing England team?

Wayne Rooney Football Boots

Wayne Rooney was wearing Nike Total 90 Supremacy football boots in platinum and blue colourways.

Order the Total 90 Supremacy football boots

View the Total 90 Supremacy Image

Thierry Henry’s Injury Frustrations Bubble Over

Arsenal’s crocked striker Thierry Henry has revealed that being a spectator does not come easy for him. In an interview with The Sun, he said “I have not been watching much football because it is not nice to watch when you are injured. It does not make things any better. Being injured is not only frustrating but also boring, very, very boring. I can’t wait to get back on to the training pitch again.” Henry is out for the rest of the season due to his injuries and so must watch the action rather than be a part of it.

Although he is unable to promote his Reebok Pro Rage football boots on the pitch, his other sponsor Pepsi has been busy as Henry is about to star in a global campaign which will see him designing his own Pepsi can along with a host of other “celebrities”.

Pepsi believe their legendary player still has the sweetness of touch and taste for success in his footy boots, but like a can that’s been opened and left around too long, has Thierry Henry’s career lost its fizz?

Read more Thierry Henry Football Boots stories.