We felt it only justified this weekend to cast our minds towards the biggest Spanish clash of the season so far as second-placed Barcelona host pretenders to the crown Real Madrid at Camp Nou on Sunday night.
It’s another great chance to witness this passionate and feisty spectacle which compares the supposed purists against the materialists, the slick and well-groomed against the brazen Brylcreemers.
Barcelona will often give out the impression of being football’s defining saviours. The pitch-kissing which greeted their Champions League win last season and the witterings of idiots like Clive Tyldesley foaming his underpants over how there was never much doubt that the Catalans would clinch European football’s greatest crown seemed somewhat at odds to the fact they were outplayed over two legs against Chelsea in the semis and scraped through with an Old Trafford-esque injury-time goal. And let’s not even talk about the Blues’ 74 penalty claims.
But all that aside, there is still a belief that Barca are the spiritual Gods of the game. In Barcelona at least. It’s a statement that might sit a little more favourably were it not for the fact they have Zlatan Ibrahimovic up front. If ever there was a man so arrogantly assured whose temperament was so exaggeratedly inflated in a vat of his own importance, then it’s the Swede. A player so undoubtedly not in the mould of the club, so you’d think, that there are still many who question the logic behind his arrival in the summer which saw popular frontman Samuel Eto’o given the boot.
For a man with such brazen confidence, there is only ever going to be one boot to wear, and that’s the Nike Mercurial Vapor Superfly. It’s the BMW boot (soon to be renamed the Audi boot), one that does a job, for sure, one that plots line on graphs and causes Bunsen burners to blow up in science labs, but a boot first and foremost that is designed to show off.
Yes, the Nike Mercurial Vapor Superfly has perfect touch, resilient close control, and presents its wearer with a lightness under foot that is reckoned to be unbeatable in the market. Ibrahimovic, for all his critics, has certainly settled well into life in the Spanish capital and the style of football – which is heavily reliant on technique rather than raw aggression – probably works to the Nike Mercurial Vapor Superfly‘s advantage more than any other domestic league in the world.
So technical is it, that the slightest advantage gained by Ibra and co is surely a worthwhile one. You’re not going to get ranging defenders come crunching in, and the Swede knows well this fact. Indeed, you might go so far as to say the only thing potentially slowing down the quickest boot on the market is the heavy-swollen head of this cocksure Catalan.
In direct contrast to everything that Ibra represents is Real’s Kaka. A man dragged up on the streets of Brazil, a man who described leaving AC Milan and its fans as a dagger to the heart, and someone who turned down the showmanship of a big-money move to Manchester City in order to prove his game was about football and not frolics.
Maybe it’s not such a surprise then to see him in a pair of Adidas adiPure II football boots. Not the flashiest boot on the market, certainly not the lightest, and not, on the face of it, offering the slick agility that you might associate with the Spanish league.
But in the marginally rougher and definitely slower Italian game to which Kaka had become so well accustomed, everything for the Brazilian was about controlling a pass and using some of the best striker intuition in the game to pick a spot, whether that be from two yards to twenty yards.
Kaka was never blessed with sublime pace, so the ability to use the Adidas adiPure II football boots strong chassis and ultra-flexible leather conditioning in order to gain a quick yard of space before lashing home from a seemingly impossible angle or distance, is actually more in-tune with how the Real man plays his game.
The Adidas adiPure II football boots are fantastically honest boots. It may not help you pull the buxom 18-year-old blond at the bar, but if you’re Kaka with his millions the chances are you may have changed into a pair of moccasins anyway by the time you mosey down to the drinks cabinet.
Ransacker Prediction: The Adidas adiPure II football boots undoubtedly worked for Kaka in the slower Italian game, but in a frenetically paced title showdown such as this you get the feeling that luxury of space will be something reserved only for the player (or players) who see red and get to enjoy a solitary early bath.
Many people would love to see Ibrahimovic fail but in this game in this scenario but the Nike Mercurial Vapor Superfly you feel may just do the job.
Other Recommended Reading
- BOOT WARS RESULT: Ibrahimovic V Kaka
- BOOT WARS RESULT: Simpson v Thomas
- BOOT WARS: Danny Simpson v Jerome Thomas
- Boot Wars Result: Michael Carrick vs Stephen Ireland
- BOOT WARS RESULT: Didier Drogba vs Glen Johnson
About the author
James is an experienced football journalist who edits two leading Premier League club mags. He has worked for Sky Sports and is endlessly complaining about shin splints. And Mark Lawrenson. His favourite boot is the Adidas Predator Powerswerve. Although it's rumored that he once owned a pair of Nicks boots!
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