Hi guys, Ian from the Football Boots Team
and today in another episode of the Football Boots Show,
I'm going to be talking about why Neymar has ended up at Puma.
There are a lot of questions to answer about this.
And in this video, I'll be getting into all of the details.
But first off, I want to take a little
step back and discuss how we got to this point.
So back in 2013, Neymar was the face of the Hypervenom
when they came out.
A massively successful boot for Nike, and that was when Neymar really burst onto
the stage. It's around the time of his move to Barcelona.
Things are going really well for him.
That was kind of the peak, perhaps, of things with Neymar.
So, he starts off and he's wearing the Hypervenom, very successful with the launch.
They move on.
He goes to the 2014 World Cup and he got his own special edition, 'Golden Dreams.'
So those were the gold boot, yellow sole,
and it was all based on the inspiration
that he used to spray his boots gold when he was a kid.
These are fantastic releases.
They were just a special edition. And he didn't really get to wear them.
I think he maybe got half on them or
something, obviously because of his back injury at the tournament.
So moving on, he carried on wearing the Hypervenoms.
He loved the Hypervenoms. A lot of people kind of now think
they're the boot of the decade. They're kind of grippy upper. Neymar 's a big fan of them.
Now remember these are with the low
collar. That'll get more important as we get on in this episode.
So he moved on from those.
He then went on to wear the 'Liquid Dreams.'
Now, the Liquid Dreams were a silver version, a signature addition for Neymar,
and they were silver version pretty much of the Golden Dreams.
But they did have this pink accent to them.
And that's going to be important as well. He went on.
And it got to the point where that was
kind of the lastish pair that he wore of the original Hypervenoms.
Then they changed into the Hypervenom 2s.
And this is where things started to get a little bit downhill
for the relationship, perhaps, between Nike and Neymar.
Now, some of the things I say in this video are going to be my opinions.
They're not necessarily facts. Just what I think about it.
So I don't want to get myself into trouble with Nike or with Neymar,
but I'm going to tell you how I see it and how I interpret what happened.
So Neymar is wearing the Hypervenom 2s.
These are now the ones with the collar on them.
He doesn't like them as much as he liked the original boots.
He doesn't really get on with them as much. Overtime,
Nike then released a new upper. It's kind of upgrade to the upper to try and solve
some of the problems, which really took us back to a more similar upper.
They also had the Phinish available, which was the low version.
Neymar will be seen wearing those a little bit.
So those Hypervenom 2s,
this is when we start to see the collab between Jordan and Neymar.
And these are some of the best kind of collab boots that we've seen.
The problem is Neymar still doesn't
like the Hypevenom at this point. And he doesn't really like wearing them so much,
in fact, that they brought out a black pair and a white pair.
And I believe the black ones, he was just seen wearing the Phinished version.
He wasn't wearing the ones with the collar.
But the main problem wasn't just the collar on that,
he didn't like that, but also the upper it just didn't suit him.
So he wants to wear the vapors.
And so he actually gets Nike to make him a pair of vapors that are disguised
to look like the Hypervenoms that he's supposed to be marketing.
So you might have heard about this before, but in essence, the boots,
when you see them close up, you can tell that they're a pair
of Mercurial Vapors but they've been painted up and designed
to look like the Hypervenoms that he's actually marketing.
So there is a real big kind of issue. Nike
tried to work it out by making them look like what he's marketing.
But it's a big problem when your player
doesn't like the boots that he's being paid to wear.
So,
eventually, Neymar managed to get himself out
of the Hypervenoms. Hypervenom moves on to the Hypervenom 3s.
It's not a Neymar thing.
Neymar is in the Vapors. And Nike take that on board and they
decided to make him kind of the big face of the Vapors.
But this is where the problem is,
is that the Vapor isn't really Nike's high-end offering in the Mercurial line.
They're always trying to put people into the Superfly.
So with this Superfly you've got the likes of Ronaldo in them,
you've got Mbappe in them, and you've now got Sancho in them as well.
That is their Elite offering and the Vapor is underneath it.
So it's a bit of a problem when you've got
one of your headline players wanting to wear that boot that is underneath.
But Nike went with it and they created the 'Written in the Stars' Vapors for him.
That those ones were based on his achievements from Brazil.
They're kind of a blue boot, star
details on them and they're actually very nice kind of signature edition for him.
Moving on, when we got to the 2018
World Cup, that was when Neymar got his 'Meu Jogo' boots.
They were a pair of yellow boots,
Amarillo. And he got to wear those in action at the World Cup.
That was a troublesome World Cup for him.
Everybody is just suggesting that he was
diving and rolling over and things like that.
So it wasn't really great for him with the kind of PR thing.
Perhaps he just took another little bit
of a hit to his profile as a big star player.
Moving on, Nike would give him the Vapors, the Vapor 12s. They also give
him his 'Speed Freaks' and then they would go on from that into the last ones
that we've seen, the white ones with all the different Neymar logos on it.
Now, there's been a lot of changes in the Neymar logo.
They've never managed to stick to one thing
which is a little bit confusing. But it's going to be useful for Puma
because it's another new logo for Neymar.
He's gone to Puma and he's going to get this new logo.
So the thing is, he actually had a year left on his contract with Nike.
So I'm not sure what's happened there,
whether it's got paid up or they just torn it up or what the thing was.
But Neymar isn't getting the position that he wants to have with Nike.
So Mbappe, his teammate at PSG,
he's a bigger deal now to Nike than Neymar is. Mbappe,
he's won the World Cup. Mbappe's got to the final of the Champions League.
Obviously, Neymar was there as well.
But Neymar is playing second fiddle
to Mbappe in the PSG team and he doesn't want to play second fiddle to him at Nike.
So it's a case of, well, maybe he'll go back to Barcelona or somthing like that.
My question would be is if he goes back to Barcelona,
how is that relationship with Puma going to be with Griezmann?
He is the headline player with the Ultras. Now talking about the Ultras,
we haven't seen Neymar move directly into wearing the Ultra straight away.
I think everybody was expecting to see that.
When they hear that he's going to go
to Puma, it's like, OK, well, he's going to be in the Ultras.
And I think people have done really well
by putting him in the Puma Kings and having this whole the 'King is Back' thing.
I think it's a great bit of marketing.
It's a great bit of stuff that's pushing people to notice the Puma King Platinums.
Now, Lukaku at Inter Milan has been banging in the goals wearing those boots.
Not sure what he's going to be wearing
this season, but he's scored a lot of goals wearing those boots.
And it's just great to see them on the pitch.
Now, the boots that you see Neymar
wearing, they're not actually available at retail.
And it's just seems like they've had to rush this out.
It seems to have been quite a quick decision.
And one of the things and I've got this
little bit of a kind of insight thought that I'll give you in a second.
But one of the things is it seems to be
rushed out because they've had to get SILNI.ART to come along. And there's the blacked out
boots and he's whited out the swoosh, not the swoosh, the formstrip on that.
So then you can see that really stand out
on pitch and then added on the Neymar logo as well.
And you can see all these custom boots,
they were all blackouts and he added the white paint to them to be worn.
So there hasn't actually been any time to get anything specifically set up
for Neymar. Now, talking about specifically set up and talking about
those Liquid Diamonds that I talked about before
if you see the pink on the Swoosh on the Phantom GTs. Now,
when Nike bring out a new boot, they normally have a headline wearer.
I can't say, though,
I can't think of anybody who is really the headline wearer
when the Phantom GTs came out. Now, they could have used Kevin De Bruyne.
They could have used Kai Havertz. They could have used Lewandowski.
I mean, Lewandowski has had a mad season.
If they could have got him into those
boots, then he would be in a great kind of headline wherever. They could have used
Harry Kane who was the headline wearer for the Phantom Venoms.
Now I understand the Covid-19 has been around and it's made it harder for them
to get marketing materials and things set up.
But I just have a suspicion that Nike
planned on having Neymar headline the Phantom GTs.
And this is the kind of insight,
kind of thought that I've got about what's going on.
I think the Neymar was supposed to front these boots.
I think that the way that these are set
up, it just reminds me of what they've done with Neymar before.
And I think Neymar was supposed to front
the Phantom GTs. You will have seen that Neymar did wear the Phantom GTs
in blackout in training earlier in the year.
So they're giving him a go. Remember that these are on the Hypervenom last,
so that means that the sole of the boot is designed-
it is the same.
So it's designed to suit the boot that Neymar liked.
Yes, it comes with a collar.
It also comes with the lows.
So it would have made sense that perhaps
they would have been happy for Neymar to wear the low version and just give him
some white socks or something to make it look like he was wearing the high.
But the other thing is
I believe that Nike planned on having a signature edition Phantom GT for Neymar.
It would have come out in the next month or so,
I believe. Clearly that's not going to happen any more.
But I believe that Nike wanting to get Neymar into the Phantom GTs. They still
wanted him around, but they wanted him to headline these.
Obviously, he's tried them
and he's decided he wanted to stick to that kind of Vapor feel of a boot.
He didn't want to come and use these boots and it's come to a head.
And he said, you know, well, I don't want to carry on.
And then he's gone to Puma.
They've had a conversation.
They've obviously worked out the money and all those kind of things.
And he's also getting that recognition that he's just not getting.
If he goes to Puma, he's their like number one,
number two player. Griezmann and Neymar-
that's all there is with Puma.
Other players a little bit further down the line.
You're now talking about your Ballotellis,
your James Maddisons, or players like that,
even Marco Reus. Players like that-
they're just not quite that elite level.
When you look at Nike, they've got a lot of elite level players.
So they've got Ronaldo.
They've got Mbappe. They've got Sancho to headline the Mercurials.
They can now just take the Vapor and say,
you know what, it's just that little notch below,
again.
They can carry on with the marketing the way they were before.
Obviously, it's a slight issue,
a slight vacuum in what they're doing with the Phantom GTs. But I say, come on,
get Lewandowski in them as soon as possible.
He is clearly the headline player for those.
He should have won the Balon d'Or this year.
The guy won everything possible in this calendar year.
He was the top goal scorer in all those
competitions. And they've taken the Balon d'Or away from him,
and I think that's a crying shame because he absolutely deserves to have won that.
And then obviously, Harry Kane and a few other players like
De Bruyne and Kai Havertz (now he's at Chelsea)
could have stand out a bit more probably.
They're going to be the players that you can see with the Phantom GTs.
But I do think that Nike originally
planned to have Neymar in them, and I think he was having none of it.
And I think now he's gone to the Puma Kings.
How long he last in the Puma Kings?
I will be surprised to see.
I think maybe we'll see a special
edition of the Ultras or something, maybe a super light version or something.
Maybe there are even tie in and make it a Neymar addition.
But they are going to try and get him into those as soon as possible. I am sure.
But it will be interesting to see whether he likes the design of those.
It is a lot wider in the forefoot. But have a think about it and see what you think
Neymar's supposed. He's got time and is going to have a little bit of resting
because he's got himself sent off in his first game wearing the Puma Kings.
Alright guys. Thank you very much for watching.
Please let me know what you think about
Neymar and his boots switch. It'd be an interesting one to follow.
Thanks for watching. Go enjoy your football.