As it turns out, footballers’ relationships with their boots
are much stranger than people might think. Everyone knows about the multimillion dollar
deals athletes that have with the world’s biggest manufacturers,
but there’s a secret world underneath, full of nerdy modifications and obsessive attitudes.
This is the story of footballers and their weird football boots.
In a garage in Widnes, near Liverpool in England, boots belonging to some very famous Premier League
players are lying around Jon Bootle’s workshop. A pink pair of Nike Air Zoom Mercurial Vapors,
owned by one of last season’s leading scorers, are about to be dyed black. It’s one of the many ways
professional players customize their boots. The blackout look is popular for aesthetic reasons,
or if a player is about to undergo a change of manufacturer and needs the logo to disappear.
Next to the garish pink boots are a pair of Adidas Crazylights.
They’re at Bootle’s workshop for a different reason. Normally a boot with moulded
studs – otherwise known as a firm ground boot – they’re about to be modified into a hybrid boot,
with a mixture of studs and moulds. It’s very common; many players request
the same services. Adama Traore sent his boots to Bootle’s workshop in an Uber. Wilfried Zaha,
Joe Willock, Georginio Wijnaldum and Richarlison are also customers.
But that’s the tip of the iceberg. Some players are easy-going about their boots.
Liverpool’s Trent Alexander-Arnold just wears his Under Armours straight out of
the box. Others are much more specific in their needs. Arsenal’s Declan Rice has more
than 25 modifications to his boots. Other players have their boots’ tongue shortened,
the heel trimmed or a particular leather used. The list goes on and on.
One Premier League player has a bespoke soul plate – in the bottom of the boot – made for £10,000.
In addition to the structure of the boot itself, there are all sorts of accessories available to
customise the experience of wearing them. There are boot steamers to soften them up. Boot ovens
to warm them. During his time in England, Joao Mourinho used to put his boots in one of those
overns before games in cold weather. And there are boot stretchers, too, designed to help the
player achieve a perfect fit, by adjusting a boot’s width or its length. Or both.
Real Madrid’s Toni Kroos has found his perfect fit already. He has an unwavering loyalty to his
Adidas Adipure 11pro boots. The boot was first released in 2013 and then discontinued in 2014,
but Kroos has always refused to move on. Brands are usually very strict about their
players wearing the latest model. So much so that some are now choosing to walk away from £50,000
or £60,000/year boot deals to spare themselves the hassle of having to constantly change. Kroos is an
outlier though and, to The Athletic’s knowledge, his arrangement with ADIDAS is one of a kind.
Former Chelsea captain John Terry was hyper selective in which boots he wore. He wore
three new pairs for every game — one for the warm-up, one for the first half, and another
for the second — “and never wore them again”. According to Terry, his boots were “a little bit
bigger and a little bit stretchy” after wearing them just once, to the point - he felt - that they
would quickly loose their touch and feel. Ruben Neves has recently left Wolverhampton
Wanderers and moved to Saudi Arabia, but he also had an unusual habit while he was in the Premier
League. Neves would wear moulded studs for 37 league games a season, except when playing at
Anfield where, he felt, he would slip over far more than usual. That was the one pitch
upon which he would wear studs in his boots. New Liverpool signing Dominik Szoboszlai has
always worn boots that are slightly too small for him. That’s a habit that dates back to
his childhood, and a recommendation made by his father. Szoboszlai Senior believed that
smaller feet gave a player better touch and control and that by wearing smaller boots,
his son’s feet would stop growing. The habit has stuck ever since.
The configuration of studs on the soulplate is an art form in itself
and Jon Bootle has all sorts of stories to tell about different players’ habits and preferences.
Aiden McGeady, the former Scotland international who also played for Celtic and Everton,
preferred metal studs but “wanted them away from the edges of the boot because
he had his foot on top of the ball a lot”. When goalkeeper Edouard Mendy first joined
Chelsea, the club became concerned by how often he was slipping over after taking goal-kicks.
The problem was that the gap between the studs on his moulded ADIDAS boots was too great and
that was causing him to fall over; Bootle made him a custom pair and that resolved the issue.
Reconfiguration of studs has become very common. Andres Iniesta famously had extra studs added to
his boots – and in an unusual positions – as he felt that that gave him extra grip.
Players also use different lengthed studs. Usually they prefer 11mm for the front of the
boot and 13mm for the back. 15mm are also not unheard of, although they are less popular.
A few footballers even have an entirely different soulplate. Nike have an anti-clog
range which prevents mud from sticking to the bottom of the boot. That isn’t much
of a problem on the pristine pitches in most top-flight grounds, but it’s useful to some.
Former Leeds United player Adam Forshaw told the Athletic that they are slightly heavier
than those with a normal soul plate, but that he wore them during a season when the
Elland Road pitch was particularly heavy and that helped him gain extra traction.
So: studs, soulplates, tongues, leather and paintwork. There
isn’t much that professional footballers don’t look to change about their boots.