The way our Football Boots look has come a long way since the days of the black leather uppers of the Copa Mundial and Patrick Gold Cup – with the likes of the adidas F50 adiZero and Superfly II utilizing special textures in their bold graphics to enhance performance and feel on the ball.
But can the design on boots go too far? We think that’s a question of personal preference, but there’s certainly been some that push the boundaries of good taste!
Let’s take a look at some of the best!
adidas +F50.6 Tunit YY
Definitely a handful of the wildest football boots you will ever see, the Tunit YY series take their design from Japanese artist Taishi Hayashi drawings of 4 different animals; the Tiger, the Wolf, the Eagle and the Dragon – we can’t help but feel these crazy cleats might have been a subtle inspiration on the new Nike CR Safari!
When the Tunit was launched in Early 2006, adidas really pushed the idea of the building your own football boots, and as a promotional exercise they asked top adidas streetwear designer Yohji Yamamoto to build his ideal F50’s.
All four designs of these football boots were put on a strictly limited edition release of 1000 and selected pairs even shipped in this magnificent display cage – awesome!
The Nomis NXGEN Spark‘s potential for wildness was truly realised. The ‘Sunset Waffle’ design you see before you was a demonstration of Nomis’ new NXGEN technology, that could allow perfect prints of graphics and designs to be applied directly to the leather.
The plan was to allow famous artists, designers and even members of the football boots-buying public to get their designs and patterns put onto their footwear.
Unfortunately Nomis ceased operations before the scheme could be implemented fully, meaning that we’re left with these sole crazy patterned football boots, and a haunting sense of what could have been!
Puma v1.06 Unseen Green
Puma’s first foray into the speed boot market was definitely a bold one, made even more bold with this Unseen Green launch colourway for the v1.06!
Whilst probably a bit tame by today’s standards, these camouflage football boots made a splash back in 2006 thanks to their unusual all-over print.
This is a great example of a company really showing off their technology, as Puma’s unorthodox microfibre canvas upper allowed the Puma design team to be much more creative than when working with more stubborn materials such as K-Leather or some varieties of synthetic leather.
Kelme Kameleon
You might have thought that Messi’s Chameleon adiZeros were the first football boots to pull a colour-changing trick on us…well, you’d be wrong!
Back in 2007, Kelme rocked the Kameleon, featuring a luxurious one-piece K-Leather upper, the Kameleon was classic football boots-styling with a crazy multi-tone sheen to them.
Unlike the Chameleon adiZero, which was built around the colour purple, the Kameleon covered a full range of colours, from Black to Brown, Green to Gold and Purple to Pink under the right light – this picture we got from an old catalogue really shows them off best!
Do you think you know of some even wilder football boots?
Drop us a note in the comments and we’ll hunt down some images for the next edition!
those f50’s are soo nice! when you look at them, you think its a peice of art, but its still the exact same well performing football boot that could be used and played in just as often as the ones regular coloured ones without any difference, however i doubt many were made 🙁
i wondered why they didnt come out in england but it occured to me that this was probably around the same time as the world cup and hopefully alot of us will remember the 20 or so colourways worldcup colourways of the f50’s that came out for (i think) every team in the world cup!
the kelme’s are pretty awesome too, imagine, your coach looks down at your feet and to him from his point of view, they look like standard old school black boots, you start running on to the pitch and all of a sudden your boots are bright green haha!
You should have included these Fila JGB73’s:
I remember those Yohji F50s… think they were meant to come with “streetwear” studs, ie blanks so that you can “Tunit” your shoe for the field and the dance floor! hmmm…. wonder why it didnt get onto the feet of players who loved to party after their games???
Bouncers are pretty strict on footwear these days – I can only imagine that’s the only reason these weren’t the talk of the town!
Thanks a lot dude!!!!
Those Nomis and Pumas are AWESOME!!
now this is what I call worthy limited collector item football boots. I like the cage idea with the adidas. Genius presentation. Those Pumas look so cosy
I think the Kelme Swarovski boots fall into the crazy design category. I think you guys did a little write-up on them a couple years ago. http://www.footy-boots.com/kelme-swarovski-football-boots-4028/
then there were those sharksin KAPPA boots and also the FILA boots that hidetoshi nakata wore for a while before he started wearing nike.
see one thing in common?
most of them are speed boots.
these are nice, i even fell a bit for that wolfie thingie on it’s cage. she’s pretty cute 😀
but personally, i’d rather have my boots “decorated” with shotshields, rubber vamps, or mukaitens -they hurt goalkeepers.
haha i love the cage idea 😀
and those FILAs Macca are great!
Quick thinking from Adidas with the F50.6 Tunit YY. I have no doubt that Adidas is trying to steal the spotlight of Nike’s CR Safari collection that is coming out in November.
@Splinter09: err… i think those F50.6 was released in year 2006…
kelme also had SHARK leather boots. those were pretty wild i’d say
some brand also shark skin! was either Kelme or Kappa. began with a K. but i think it was kelme
Kappa shark grip,the studs were moulded to look like teeth.
Where can i get a pair of those tiger ones? They’re unreal!!!
Does any one know were i can get some Tunits from, would be a great help,,,
Cheers Guys
i had some Kappa shark grip boots when i played,they were great ,shark leather with moulded studs that looked like teeth £100+