Soccer Game Changers #2
R9 to CR7: The Nike Mercurial
The second article also focuses on a revolutionary boot worn by a star of the 1998 World Cup. The ‘Mercurial’ had an aesthetic and composition that was unlike anything on the market. The wave-like design — which may have gone on to influence the Nike Air Max 95 — was made possible by a new synthetic upper. A departure from leather was a first for the genre and made the boot incredibly lightweight, for speed, a facet that was wholly appropriate for its fleet-footed poster boy, the original Ronaldo (or R9).
Replete with moulded studs the shoe also boasted a dazzling colour scheme – although originally released in black, by the time the Brazilian (pictured) pulled them on in France they were a dashing blue and silver, finished with yellow trim and ‘swoosh’.
Even though adidas and Zidane won the tournament the Mercurial emerged as a commercial victor, and Nike would go on to release 8 further iterations — the latest of which is adorned by Cristiano Ronaldo today.
The boot is a modern classic that introduced a totally new fabrication into the market (which would soon be mimicked by competitors) and unleashed a kaleidoscope of colour into soccer.
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On 19th April 2018 Nike released Instagram images of their latest Mercurial — in the original 1994 World Cup design!
