TOP 5 WEIRDEST FOOTBALL BOOT INVENTIONS

The modern football boot industry has become all about tech .

People want the latest boots with the latest technologies .

Now , some of these technologies or inventions as I like to call them have been truly revolutionary for the football boot industry , synthetic materials , knitted uppers , mid cut boots , laces , boots , striking elements just to name a few and then there's boot inventions that are just straight up weird .

Today , we're gonna be focusing on those what's going on guys , Josh from soccer reviews for you dot com , bringing you my picks for the top five weirdest football boot inventions of all time .

The criteria for these picks being pretty simple .

Obviously , it has to be a weird invention but that weird invention also has to be a significant part of the way the boot fits , feels and ultimately performs .

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Lotto Twist and Go Technology .

See it twists .

Wow .

So this weird metal spinny stud thing known as Lotto Twist and Go technology is something that the brand put out in 2008 on all their top end models .

And it's something that was not particularly well received .

Not because it was bad because quite honestly , there's nothing wrong with this concept , but because people were too afraid to buy them based on the fact that they were worried about the twisty stud actually breaking off which to be fair to the average consumer that is a valid concern .

Now , this might seem like something really simple .

But when Lotto first launched this technology , they really made a big deal out of it , kind of claiming it as the next big revolution in football boots .

The technology itself was developed in collaboration with the university where the concept behind the 360 degree rotation of the stud in either direction was improved , stability , improved agility , injury prevention as well as just better overall traction .

Now , you have to keep in mind that in 2008 , Lotto was still considered to be one of the top brands , although they were definitely declining .

This was the thing that they were going to put out to save the brand more or less .

But basically what ended up happening is that one , most people didn't care to the people that did care about .

Lotto boots were kind of concerned about this breaking .

And then three , the people that did give it a chance realize that there's really nothing special to it at all .

I feel like the concept itself is pretty self explanatory and easy to understand .

Once your foot is planted .

If the stud has the ability to spin with your foot , you'll be able to pivot more easily , therefore , be more agile .

But even as a kid , when these came out , I recognize that there's only one pivot stud and it's underneath your big toe .

And the likelihood of being able to it at high speed while only being on one stud and still maintaining good traction was extremely unlikely in a situation that pretty much never happens .

When you plant your foot for maximum grip , you try to have as many studs planted into the ground as possible , so you don't slip .

So when you actually got the opportunity to try the lotto twist and go stud , you found that the traction was just like any other boot with conical studs .

Dynamic power pulse technology weirdly satisfying with dynamic power pulse being an evolution of regular power pulse first seen on the predator absolute and then made a little bit weirder and possibly a little bit cooler with the power swerve .

So the original version of power pulse technology looks like this .

It's basically a bar made out of some kind of metal attached to the four ft of the insole .

It has these little flex grooves and it is actually quite stiff and has some significant bulk to it .

This little bar weighs 40 g .

So , yes , at one point , Adidas was actually adding weight to their football boots for the sake of performance .

Now , you'll notice all of this bulk has to go somewhere and you'll find on the soul plate of the predator absolute .

It has this little bump out with the window .

So you can physically see the power pulse technology .

And the idea behind it is that they added that extra 40 g of weight basically at the contact point where you would strike the ball where theoretically Adidas was claiming that this would increase the ball speed , not necessarily the power of your shot , but the ball speed by 5% .

So I guess to put a number on that if you could strike a ball 50 miles an hour with this technology , technically , you could do 52.5 miles an hour .

That's actually significant .

The only problem is it didn't work , maybe in theory it worked .

But in reality , it really made no difference and you were carrying more weight around in your boots while running .

Oh , and indeed , it's also included a lightweight version of the insole without the extra 40 g in case you didn't want the extra performance fast forward to the next generation .

And we got the predator power swerve , which was basically an evolution of what we had with the including the Power pulse technology that was now dynamic power pulse where you got 30 g of extra weight , not 40 .

So they decreased it by 10 g .

And instead of being a solid bar of metal , instead , the 30 g comes from tungsten powder , which is actually some kind of metallic powder that is free to move inside of this little bubble still positioned underneath the four ft .

The idea behind the weighted sand is not only the benefit of having the extra weight at the contact point , but also the increased swing speed that you would get because that weight is now transferring with the momentum of your foot as you strike the ball , ultimately ending at the striking point , the contact point resulting in more power if that's what you chose to believe as weird and gimmicky as this might .

This is the type of football boot innovation and technology that I really like to see and the fact that it's even optional because they give you the weighted insole and they also give you the lightweight variation is nice as well because it's not hurting the overall performance of the boot .

They're trying something new and you're actually getting something that is truly different than what we had seen before .

And this was back in 2009 .

I'd love to see what they could do with this concept .

Now , ladies and gentlemen , without question , the weirdest football boot technology of all time , the Serafino fourth edge to pu element thing .

Yeah , this is one of those products that's hard to believe actually exists , but it does .

In 1994 these really changed the game with the original Predator , the concept of adding rubberized elements for the sake of added grip and potentially added power in the areas of the foot that you would use to strike the ball using proper striking technique really resonated with a lot of people , the Serafino fourth edge with it to punt element kind of is along those lines in terms of the base concept .

But instead of utilizing proper striking mechanics , they designed their entire boot around the one way that they teach you as a kid not to kick the ball and that's toe hunting .

I mean , this angle really says it all this angle is pretty bad too .

But the Serafino fourth edge is basically a Walmart caliber football boot at its core using this very cheap synthetic that surprisingly isn't uncomfortable in any way .

But it's far from premium with this large kind of clown nose looking rubberized toe pun element strapped to the front .

You can see how far it extends past the actual toe of your football boot .

So that's basically all of the extra rubber with some added padding on the inside that basically allows you to tow punt the ball as hard as you possibly can without hurting your toe , which is something that you really wouldn't be able to do in a regular pair of football boots maybe one or two times .

But after that , your toe is legitimately going to start to hurt .

So , from that perspective , the toe punt technology on the Serafino fourth edge does actually work .

So if you only know how to toe punt , you have absolutely no shame .

These are the boots for you , believe it or not .

Theodora used to be one of the most popular brands of football boots .

I remember growing up as a kid wanting Theodora football boots , which is not what you hear from kids these days at all .

And one of the most high tech football boots that Theodora brand ever put out was the Theodora Maximus RT X 14 team .

It had spring loaded studs , more specifically spring loaded cylindrical studs that provide increased shock absorption and maximum traction .

How could you not want that ?

No , unfortunately , I don't actually have a pair of these boots in my collection to show you , but there is a video on my channel warning it's an older video .

So the quality is not going to be that great where I did do a review on a pair of these boots that I borrowed from the soccer store that I used to work at and then brought them back should have bought them .

But I didn't .

So as you can see all the studs along the outside of the boot have this kind of weird bladed shape and then protruding through the middle about two millimeters I would say is this small black piece also made out of plastic that's attached directly to a spring that you can see on some of the translucent studs that runs right through the middle of the blades .

They are physically spring loaded and move ever so slightly , basically the same two millimeters that they stick out the behind .

This is that would actually cushion your kind of steps or while you're running to provide better overall comfort and supposedly this would benefit traction as well .

I've tried these boots on , I've worn them in the store even on hard ground just to see if I could feel any kind of movement in the studs .

And quite honestly , I couldn't , the spring loaded stud from Theodora , in my opinion , might be the most complicated football boot technology of all time .

Not only was it weird ?

Not only was it unnecessarily complicated ?

It also wasn't very durable because as I was working at this soccer store , I was able to sell a couple pairs of these Dior and shortly after selling them , they came back to the store broken because the little protruding piece that was spring loaded in some of the studs would basically just fall out and the boots would get returned for warranty .

And guess what ?

Those people did not want the same pair .

Again .

Rounding out this list is an invention from under armor and I know what you're thinking .

It's the zipper boot , but it's not the zipper boot because under armor did not invent the zipper .

They simply brought shame to the zipper .

What I instead picked as one of the weirdest football boot inventions ever is the carbon fiber wing featured exclusively on the under armor blur carbon three , which believe it or not also happens to be one of my personal favorite football boots of all time .

The blur carbon three was available in both synthetic and leather upper variations .

My preference being the leather model but I have the synthetic version to show you right here and as a whole and as you can see , it's actually a very complicated boot with this kind of burrito style tongue lots of different pieces to the upper this kind of V cut to the actual heel area , which is something that we would see later introduced by Adidas on the Nemesis line .

It has one of the best insoles ever to be featured on a pair of football boots and it has a combination of carbon fiber and pe backs for the soul plate that's also extremely underrated .

However , the weirdest element is the carbon fiber wing that kind of extends from the lateral side of the soul plate with a plastic outline and carbon fiber filling out the middle .

Now you're probably thinking to yourself , the upper of a football boot is designed to provide a nice touch on the ball .

So why on earth would you put a hard plastic , thick and carbon fiber piece on the lateral side of your foot ?

Well , they've positioned it in such a way to where you're not really going to be making contact with the ball in this area , all that much you might .

And if you do trust me , when I say you're not going to feel this at all partnered with this carbon fiber wing , you'll notice is this chrome piece of material which is actually a very thick and more structured piece of synthetic that's based more around structure rather than touch .

This orange piece of synthetic is actually much thinner and where you're going to be making contact with the ball , I would say 95% of the time .

So the logic behind this chrome synthetic along with the carbon fiber wing is to basically create a very hard side wall on the lateral side of the boot .

So when you're sprinting at full speed and you make a quick change of direction and really push off on the side of the upper the wing and the material here that they've used really act as a high reinforced element to make for an extremely responsive sensation .

And trust me when I say it works really , really well .

So why didn't it catch on well because it's under armor and under armor at this point in time , was still relatively new to the football boot industry .

And this I would say was more or less their first home run of a boot .

The problem is so many of the boots that they produced prior to this were complete failures and honestly terrible products .

And then the boots that came after the blur carbon three weren't necessarily that great either .

That's kind of the story of the under armor brand .

When it comes to football boots , they make something great , then they make something absolutely terrible that I just threw behind me .

So I'm not even going to go find it anyways guys .

That's it for this one .

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There's any other weird football boot inventions that you would add to this list , feel free to leave them down below in the comments .

I'm always curious to hear what you guys think is weird or cool or whatever it might be .

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