mercurial
adjective |mer·cu·ri·al | (ˌ)mər-ˈkyu̇r-ē-əl |
Some lucky and truly devoted fans of the game, waited fervently on a London evening to witness, worship and enter the Twilight zone as the likes of Neymar, Hazard, Sanchez, Aubameyang and many others gather in the same room to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Nike Mercurial cleats.
The adjective mercurial means having qualities of eloquence, ingenuity, or trickery attributed to the god Mercury or to the influence of the planet Mercury.
DUSE
As anyone at the NASA will tell you, Mercury can be observed for only a brief period during either morning or evening twilight. As anyone in Beaverton will tell you fit is the foundation of fast. No matter how innovative a pair of football boots may be, if the fit isn’t right, if the foot slides even 1 mm inside the boot, speed can be compromised. For this reason, fit became the focal point in designing the new Mercurial, leading to its game-changing 360 construction made possible through a new advancement in Nike Flyknit technology. For the geeks of you, Mercury takes only 88 days to complete an orbit. It’s quite fast, just like the players rocking the Nike Mercurial Superfly 360 and the Mercurial Vapor 360.
Animation of Mercury’s and Earth’s revolution around the Sun by the talented Todd K. Timberlake author of Easy Java Simulation – Francisco Esquembre own work.
This innovation involves the foot and eliminates the spaces between it and the sole. In fact, eliminates the sole all the way through.
Max Blau,Vice President of Nike Football Footwear Department.
As we all know, the Beaverton crew always have something cooking at the lab to help their guys achieve the best performances. Without soles, the Mercurial feature a new internal structure especially designed to ensure maximum responsiveness. The structure is designed individually for each size through a computer programming. Traction is achieved thanks to the precise location of the spikes on the front of the foot and ankle. Nike was inspired by the agility of the cheetahs and concentrated on traction to get speed, leading to the minimalist approach referred to affectionately as the Cheetah paw.
However, to us, one of our favorite highlight of the night was the presence of the Fenomeno himself. Twenty years ago, he was the one who made the Mercurial cleats became a great success it has endured since. So if you are talking about Nike Mercurial cleats, you must talk about Ronaldo!
Do you remember, in the 1998 World Cup, when debuted the first pair of shoes of the line, using them in virtually all games of the tournament and scoring some of the most iconic goals in the world cup history.
Speaking of the World Cup, for the 2018 edition, the Portuguese Cristiano Ronaldo, the Brazilian Neymar Jr and our very own Eden Hazard will rock the freshest new cleats on 2018 FIFA World Cup. As we say here at Duse “When you look good, you play good.” The 2018 World Cup is going to be lit!
DUSE Magazine | Diego Aguiar @Dreiller
