Having basically been the face of the franchise for well over a year now, Jude Bellingham has just received his first signature edition adidas Predator. But more than a mere acknowledgment of the player’s performances on the pitch, could this represent a defining moment in football culture?
When you think of the adidas Predator franchise, you automatically think of Zidane and Beckham. Sure, there are other players you could throw in there, but those two are key pillars of the Predator legacy; the 30-year dynasty that has helped shape the modern football boot market into what it is today. But since Beckham hung up his Predator LZ II back in 2013 there has arguably been no true heir apparent. Yes there have been pretenders, but no one has truly stepped up to the role. Until now. See, now there appears to be a natural successor to what has been a vacant throne. Now, there’s Jude Bellingham.
Few things in the history of football have gone together as well as David Beckham and the Predator, whether it was the Touch, Accelerator, Mania, Precision or Powerswerve. The franchise and player were so mutually beneficial to one another, so intangibly linked, that the success of each was almost symbiotic in nature. In the late nineties and early noughties, the Predator was at the cutting edge of innovation in football, and Beckham was one of the key players showing it off week in, week out, at the peak of his powers. The England captain, like Messi and Ronaldo after him, transcended the game – he was more than a player, he was a global phenomenon, and the Predator was the tool of his trade.
Flash forward ten years from his retirement, and there’s a new Englishman playing for Madrid and impressing the world while wearing Predators, with players like Aitana Bonmati and Trent Alexander-Arnold stepping up as a very able supporting cast for what is a new generation.
While the defining years of the adidas Predator were all about power and precision, that gave way to speed and dynamism in the mid noughties, as Messi stepped into the spotlight in his F50s and took the mantle as adidas’s key man from Zidane. Then, when the final whistle was blown on Beckham’s career, it felt like the Predator was left like a ship without a captain as it entered an experimental era ahead of the franchise’s premature retirement in 2015 and subsequent resurrection in 2017.
Around this time, adidas were struggling for a player that could not only face campaigns, but elevate them. This needed to be done not just through on-pitch performances, but also through a natural charisma that feeds into that superstar quality. Sure, they had Lionel Messi, but for all of his talent on the pitch, he’s not one to seek the limelight off of it, unlike his perennial rival, Cristiano Ronaldo over at Nike.
For a while they put all their eggs in the Pogba basket, and, in fairness, that yielded nine signature collections – a marker of success to a certain extent (you don’t get a sequel if the first movie tanks, and so on until you have the Fast & Furious franchise). But whether it was the controversy that followed the Frenchman, or whether it was that the returning Predator just couldn’t find its stride at that time, veering from its ACE-esque early (re)incarnation to the mutated Freak, the pairing always felt forced, never matching the harmonious nature of Beckham and his boots.
And so it remained for a short time. Pogba drifted out of public consciousness, and the Predator continued to evolve, as it has done so successfully over the years. Then, in 2021 a boy from Birmingham, playing at Borussia Dortmund, popped up on the radar as he showed his appreciation for the Predator franchise by slipping into the golden adidas Predator Accelerator ZZ edition, released as part of the '25 years of Predator' pack back in 2019 (if ever there was a sign of things to come…). By October of that year, Bellingham had officially made the switch from the COPA, becoming the face of the all-new Predator Edge. With his on-pitch performances catching admiring glances from the giants of Europe as he faced releases such as the special edition Swarovski drop, the Predator, it seemed, had potentially found a player to live up to its prestige.
Then came the Predator 24 (initially unveiled in special edition guise as the Predator 30) and with it one of those record skip moments. Released in part to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the franchise, it felt like a proper Predator of old, but built for the modern game. It had all the calling cards that had made the boot stand out over the years, from a more classic rubber fin execution in the forefoot (now known as Strikeskin) to that returning fold-over tongue (who knew that a tongue could have such a profound effect?). The arrival of this boot coinciding with Bellingham's astronomical rise just felt like one of those moments where everything falls into place.
And the footballing world lapped it up, with Bellingham standing tall as the main man, now wearing the white of both Real Madrid and England, supported by the likes of newly signed athletes Alexander-Arnold and newly crowned Balon d’Or winner Aitana Bonmati, both of whom received their own custom colourways.
Bellingham’s move to Madrid and the sheer pace at which he hit the ground running following his arrival at the Bernabeu propelled him to all-new heights – suddenly, adidas had a young player with an off-pitch presence to match his on-pitch performance; a man who, at only 20 when the Predator 24 came out, could captivate a room with his words and presence in the same way that he could captivate an 80,000+ crowd with his footballing ability. He could step out on the pitch and score a Champions League match-winning brace one minute, and then appear at the Paris Fashion Week decked out in a full LV fit the next, never looking out of place or pace in either setting.
While all seems on the up, there’s lessons to be learnt from Pogba’s journey though. There’s an argument to be made around Pogba's off-pitch exploits eclipsing his on-pitch heights; the potential was always there, but did he ever live up to it? A World Cup in the trophy cabinet would be a strong indicator to say yes, but it always felt like there could have been so much more. It’s an interesting coincidence that Jude's first signature colourway is the same as Pogba's first – the ACE 16+ Purecontrol. You just have to hope that that isn’t a portent of things to come. But it doesn’t feel like that because Bellingham feels different; he’s only just beginning, and yet he already has grounded outlook and a mentality that belies his age – you only have to listen to his post match interviews to get a sense of that. Again like Beckham, you could easily see him captaining his country in the not too distant future. There’s that air of responsibility about him already. You feel that if he can avoid serious injury, there will be nothing to stop him.
Preceding his signature Predator, Bellingham received his first signature Originals clothing line earlier this year, in which his ‘JB’ logo made its debut. It’s a collection that you just couldn’t quite see Messi pulling off; yes, the Argentinian has had multiple clothing collections in the past, but they’ve always had a performance angle. For all his unrivalled ability with a ball at his feet, Messi just lacks that level of cool that would see him boost the profile of a fashion/lifestyle product. Bellingham though, already has that appeal and that direct link to the fashion world. He sits perfectly at the intersection of these two increasingly intermingling cultures – one look at his positioning for the recent Real Madrid x Y-3 collection is evidence of his status in this arena, standing out, as he did, as the perfect conduit. He’s front and centre of everything that adidas are doing right now, and that’s coupled with Louis Vuitton announcing him as an official ‘Friend of the House’ back in April of this year. No footballer has had such a cross-cultural influence at such a young age, and he now sits in the driving seat of where this movement goes.
And that’s where Bellingham's new signature Predator really comes into focus. Sure there’s been a fair few custom colourways of the Predator 24 knocking around for the likes of Alexander-Arnold, Aitana Bonmati and Bellingham himself over this last year, but the ‘BelliGold’ Predator is different – this is the first proper signature edition Predator that's widely available for retail since Pogba’s Predator Accuracy back in early 2023 (a relative non-event in itself given the midfielder was struggling for playing time due to injury). More than that though, the 'BelliGold' Predator feels like a real marker and the start of a new chapter in earnest. Similar to how Beckham took football culture in an entirely new direction, it now feels like Bellingham is perfectly positioned to be a leading figure in this football x fashion era, and how fitting that is should all come together in the year of the Predator’s 30th anniversary. Almost like somebody wrote it.
Pick up the adidas Predator 'Belligold' from 18 October at prodirectsport.com/soccer
