Professional footballers are used to getting what they want. When it comes to their tools of the trade almost every player has a certain request or modification to their boots. When brands are offering full bespoke treatment players duly oblige. A number of players, including Real Madrid's Nacho, have received a heavily modified leather version of the new Predator 18 this week.
The majority of adidas athletes, including Paul Pogba, Dele Alli and Mesut Ozil, will slip on the laceless design, perhaps with a tweak or two such as a made-to-measure fit, but adidas have also had to create a different design for a small number of their players. The ACE 17 was launched in a k-leather option, but the Predator 18 is not – this has led to adidas having to design a bespoke option, as Nacho Fernandez has shown off this week.
Bayern Munich's Mats Hummels and Manchester United's Nemanja Matic have also been sporting the custom design, that features a lower-cut collar system and a k-leather upper. The trio have sacrificed the raised ridges of the super-soft ControlSkin on the original Predator 18+ design in favour of a more familiar feel. We discovered that the ControlSkin was as, if not more, comfortable than the K-leather, in our review of the adidas Predator 18+, but footballers are a superstitious bunch and who are we to question their preferences.
The modified lower-cut, leather Predator 18 will not be released to a wider audience, with adidas quite rightly backing their new ControlSkin technology.
Pick up the adidas Predator 18 collection from prodirectsoccer.com
