BEHIND THE SCENES AT THE ADIZERO LAUNCH

Adidas launched the new F50 adiZero at Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona, with football superstars Leo Messi and David Villa.

Spanish striker David Villa, had this to say: “Speed is such an important part of my game and I am so excited about being even faster when I’m playing in South Africa against the best in the world in just a few weeks time.”

The adidas F50 adiZero is truly an astonishing football boot, it incorporates pioneering boot technology, materials and engineering to weigh a mere 165 grams.

Aubrey Dolan

Senior Product Manager for adidas Football

The F50 is all about speed. It needs to be, because modern football has become so much quicker, even in the last five years. So when designing the new boots we were looking to make a big difference for players.  When we consulted players like Messi, Villa, Adebayor, Podolski, Benzema, Nasri and Defoe, they consistently told us they wanted boots that would help them become faster. Players wanted to be first to the ball, so we decided that the best way forward was to make a lightweight product which could be used at the highest level. There were other major considerations like the need for support and protection, but we were always driven primarily by the need to be faster.

We started development in 2008 and looked into areas like competitive sprinting for inspiration. Looking at performance sprinters helped us come up with some special features to aid straight-line speed. However there’s a big difference between an athlete running 100 metres in 9.67 seconds and a footballer running over 13 kilometres in different directions over 90 minutes. We also needed to factor acceleration, deceleration and rapid turns into our prototype.

The feedback from the prototype was amazing. The first version was all black, with no markings. Everyone wanted to touch and feel the boot and players were saying,“Wow!” when they felt how light the boots were. Then we were certain we were heading in the right direction.