None of this is bad mind you, football is a safe way to experience certain severe emotions that would normally only be associated with events of truly grave consequences in one’s life, as opposed to sports. Some people are addicted to adrenaline, we appear to be addicted to relentlessly unsatisfied hopes and dreams. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Well… maybe a little more fun would be nice.

The Summer of 2010 transfer window may go down as the one that shifted the tectonic plates of football back to their natural position. The lavish spending of clubs mortgaging their financial future in order to keep up with other clubs also mortgaging their financial future seems to have been reigned in somewhat. Only Manchester City spent money like its going out of style which, if you’ve seen some of the other things being financed by Abu Dhabi, may quite literally be the case.

As usual as soon as the season is getting spicy and gaining momentum, we hit an international break to bring us all back down. They’re bad enough normally, but to experience relatively pointless international football just months after the exhilaration of the World Cup is a contrast I can’t even begin to want to experience.

Soooo… I won’t!

Nike generously hooked me up with all four models from the Nike Elite Series family of boots to review, that’s the Mercurial Vapor SuperFly II, CTR360 Maestri, Total90 Laser III and Tiempo Legend.

This week, I’ll be looking at the Nike Total90 Laser Elite.

A few things to check out before we get to the review:
- My post on the Nike Elite Series as a whole, and why it’s potentially a landmark shift in football product consumerism.
- Review #1: Nike Mercurial Vapor Superfly 2 Elite
- The photo album I put together of the whole Elite Series family. It features loads of unboxing photos, close-ups from all-angles and my own commentary. Football Boot Porn, indeed.

Now onto Review #2 in the Elite Series family, the Nike Total90 Laser Elite.

THE SPECS:
- Includes exclusive shoe bag and box
- Teijin microfiber synthetic upper for superior fit, performance and comfort in all conditions
- Adaptive Shotshield technology for instep and swerve-kicking accuracy
- Asymmetric, anatomically engineered lacing system for expanded ball-control surface
- Asymmetric tongue design following the natural lines of the foot to avoid unnatural restriction of movement
- Cutting-edge shape correcting memory foam for a super-smooth surface for truer strikes
- Innovative Instep pods for even pressure and powerful precision
- Strategically angled, raised TPU fins for shooting and passing accuracy
- Full length thermoplastic composite carbon reinforced chassis for incredible energy return and strength
- Direct Inject bladed TPU studs for optimal traction and stability
- Firm-ground (FG) studs for use on short-grass fields that may be slightly wet, but rarely muddy
- Weight: 10 oz.

THE SMELL:
Much like the Superfly Elite, there’s not a lot to say about smell when it comes to synthetic boots. Certainly I still get a mild high from “new shoe” smell, but you need leather to get that oh-so-sweet “new boots” smell. Sad, but par for the course so hard to moan too much. The other downside to synthetic boot smell is that it very quickly becomes “old feet” smell without the strong leather scent to mask it. A bit of airing out necessary.

THE LOOK:
A classic silhouette will always have my heart, so I’m a bit biased to judge the merits of a more modern boot like the T90. Strangely, the purple/orange colourway is so bold that I’m less distracted or cognisant of the instep pods or TPU fins that sweep across the upper. The boot does look rugged and certainly fitting of some of the players who wear it like Wayne Rooney, it seems beefy and powerful with all the extra add-ons giving an armored feel. The look is growing on me, and certainly more so in this colourway than some of the more garish offerings available in the past. I definitely got a lot of questions about these boots, more so than the Superfly, and given they’re exactly the same colour scheme that’s got to be down to the visuals. Your call if that attention is something you want, of course.

The only other thing was the boot looked wider than the rest, I actually have no idea if I have wide or narrow feet, but the boots looked wide. I held judgment till I tried them on of course.

THE SLIP ON:
Nice and easy, I haven’t actually had a boot with an asymmetrical lace system for a while, but it didn’t cause any issues. If anything the slip on had me feeling that the boot might end up being a little wide for my foot as I had been suspecting from just looking at them, but we’ll see about that once I get to stomp around a bit in…

THE FIT:
I tried these on immediately after putting on the Elite Superfly 2’s and right away felt a huge difference in the comfort. I wrote at length in my Nike Mercurial Vapor Elite Superfly 2 Review that the boots had a hardish shell that created a less supple boot but a lighter one and, in my opinion, led to cleaner contact. But the Nike Total90 Laser Elite was the opposite, my toes slipped into what was clearly a heavily cushioned and incredibly comfortable boot inner, especially around the toes. I was genuinely taken aback by it as I never expected it from a synthetic boot which rarely cradled the foot.

I had to see if there was really something to this or if I was just imagining things. The official specs listed memory foam in the tongue of the boot, which was obvious and added some noticeable improvements to foot-feel, but there was definitely something going on further deep within the caverns of this little fella.

After sticking my hand into both boots, the difference was clear. The Superfly 2 was roomy and fairly hard inside the toe area, certainly with no padding or extra material. But the Total90 toe area was clearly padded by both actual cushioned pads and what felt like a layer of thin blanket-type material covering the inside of the boot. Lifting up the tongue didn’t allow me to see far enough inside, so I decided to stick my iPhone inside and guerilla a couple photos.

T90 Interior side and upper





You can clearly see, and definitely feel, these pads sewn all around the inside lining. They really enhance the foot-feel and cushioning from the first wear. Just purely on a comfort level the T90s are night-and-day when compared to other top tier boots I’ve tried, especially at this weight where most manufacturers discard anything they possibly can to shed ounces – including a boot like the Superfly 2 which lacks any extra padding inside the boot but also comes in about 20% lighter than the T90.

There was also an interesting relationship between the outer boot and the inner lining, the outer was beginning to fold and flex in relatively unnatural ways – typical of a synthetic boot – but I felt no pressure from any of these folds on my actual foot. This is often a problem with synthetic boots I’ve worn, where the material bends in ways your foot isn’t, but the inner padded lining of the T90 seems to be preventing these folds from having any impact on comfort.

You can see the folds here with my foot stationary, clearly my stationary foot isn’t actually folding in the middle like this and if not for the lining I think I’d be feeling these folds digging into my foot. The outer is acting almost like an outer-sock casing to the padded lining.



I had expected the Tiempo Legend Elite to be the comfort king from the Elite Series, and maybe it will still prove to be, but the Total90 has set a much higher bar than I anticipated. A big surprise, and a very pleasant one.

THE FLEX:
I was really curious to try the flex test with the T90. To recap, the flex test is something I’ve done with all my boots the past few years as I’ve had more and more opportunities to review product. A true test of a boot would be to give it a number of weeks worth of games and practice time to really see how your feet react to the quirks of the boots under sustained and heavy duress. Putting them on for one run-out just won’t do it no matter what you think.

But I’ve found the flex test helps me predict the future somewhat, especially before a boot breaks in. I basically pop a hard squat with the boots on, putting my entire weight on the point where my toes bend and fully flex the boot. This position simulates how far your foot, and the boot, will flex as you’re sprinting and pushing off. Any abnormalities you find, any discomfort you feel, during the stress test will be exacerbated even further in match situations. If my toes hurt during the flex test, I know I can expect my toes to hurt when I sprint in a match. As usual, my results in the flex test are likely different to your own.

The T90 flex test was interesting to me because of the relationship I was discovering between the inner padded lining and the outer shell/sock. I couldn’t wait to see how they moved together, or not, with the flex test.

The Flex Test (alongside the Umbro Speciali, the best flex-tester to date thanks its top quality, supple-out-the-box kangaroo leather):

Total90 Laser Elite vs Umbro Speciali



And for reference, the Superfly 2 Elite vs Umbro Speciali

The first pic is the T90 flex test and the second is the Superfly 2 flex test for comparison’s sake across the Elite Series. Both are done alongside the Umbro Speciali, whose excellent kangaroo leather provides the most natural flexing of any of my boots. The difference between synthetic and leather is obvious with the flex test.

But between the two Elite boots you can also see a big difference already, while the Superfly 2 had a number of deep folds running across it, the T90 really only folded at two key points, with almost a toe cap area remaining completely unaffected by the flex. It’s almost as if my foot, and maybe the padded lining, are flexing within the boot and leaving the relatively stationary save for two points, because to flex like this would suggest to me a poor fit because of that “toe cap” effect rather than the boot bending naturally with my foot. But it’s a testament to the padded lining of the T90 that the actual foot-feel is completely different.

The good news is that the flex test created no pressure points on my foot. But there’s still a niggling curiosity I have as to why, because the banner standard is the Umbro Speciali (or probably any broken-in k-leather boot) where the boot flexes comfortably WITH your foot. The T90 allows for a comfortable flex, but the boot doesnt really look like it’s contouring to my foot – at least not the outer. I suppose at the end of the day it doesn’t matter much as long as it’s comfortable, but I’m actually excited to have a new use case emerge from the flex test as I hadn’t seen something like this before.

The T90 is proving to really be full of surprises.

THE RUN-OUT:
As usual, got a couple matches and a couple practices worth with these to get a proper sense of things. Comfort-wise, the T90s are on point for all the reasons we’ve already been through. I worried that the extra padding and pods and fins, designed to improve the striking of the ball, would sacrifice touch, but there were really no discernable problems. On the contact front, it’s always tough to measure changes without a laboratory setting and some proper science involved but I did feel I was getting a decent connection on the ball. However the Superfly 2 remains the boot where I really felt I could tell a difference in striking contact (read more on that here). There was a very satisfying thump on the ball and the snugness of the boot around my foot was a big contributor to the feeling that I was really getting through the ball. The impact of the fins and pods was difficult to discern, but the comfort factor was clear throughout each match and each practice. There were a couple passes I hit that really sailed, but as always a couple flubbed, so it’s always a tough read.

On some specific quirks in my own feet, a lot of boots end up causing deep bruising on both my inside ankles for some reason – something about the way I plant my foot – while the artificial turf my team plays on can result in heel pain when playing with certain boots, especially those with longer studs. But while the Superfly 2 was good on the ankles it left me with some heel pain, but no such problems at all from the T90. Ankles and heels A-OK.

Sometimes boots, even those your size, feel odd on your foot because they’re stiff in wrong areas leading to excess pockets of space. The extra padding in the T90 really helps prevent this, and a snug boot is a good boot.

Lastly, I’ll add that I was never conscious of the T90s during all the time I played with them, something that can’t be said of other boots that maybe had a niggle here or a niggle there. I felt great through all the matches, had no pain, and played well. Not sure what else you can ask for.

OVERALL:
I was really surprised by this boot, I expected it to be the most gimmicky and maybe not play to my preference for classic sensibilities but the padded inner lining was an absolute revelation for me. The knock on synthetic boots vs leather has always been their inability to contour and conform to your own foot either out the box, or over time. But the padded lining of the T90 makes a massive difference and really creates that feeling that the boot is working with, and to support, the natural shape and movement of your foot. That is huge. For all the performance and lightness of a boot like the Superfly, I’d happily give up an ounce or two of weight to see a similar lining introduced there.

Pros:
- Outstanding comfort thanks to inner padded lining and memory foam pods.
- Padded lining also created solid, secure fit which creates solid contact when striking the ball and excellent foot-feel.
Cons:
- Aesthetic may not be to everyone’s taste, especially those who prefer a classic look.
- Feels a little wide, but the padding minimises any shifting.

But no.

Alas, Foy’s asshattery has not prevented me enjoying a wacky opening two weekends to the season. Four 6-0’s? Are you serious? Not only that but two teams on the receiving end, Villa and Blackpool, enjoyed big wins the week before.

Chelsea look like an utter machine right now, but my eyes are on Man City as a lot of people’s are. They’ve spent and overbloated their squad and thrown all sense of squad harmony and balance to the wind so I’m praying for some spectacular outbursts, with Rafa gone someone has to step up. Although the way Liverpool played today, Anfield may yet remain a rich vein of football comedy and drama.