The extravagant Mercurial built for ‘speed’, the classic Tiempo engineered for ‘touch’ and the strong T90 Laser driven for power and ‘accuracy’ – Nike envisaged a lacuna when it came to football boots, which it addressed through the CTR360 Maestri.
In fact, introduced back in 2009, the brand of the Big Swoosh’s 4th silo has created a niche for the midfield pass maestro, having the vision to dictate the play while boasting top-notch ball ’control’.
Despite losing the support of world-class playmaker Fàbregas in the process, the range has been a great success over this relatively short period of time, today boasting endorsees like Ganso, Wilshere and, perhaps most importantly, Iniesta.
Note that, despite being crafted with the needs of the midfielder in mind, you can also find defenders like Bonucci of Juventus and forwards like Manchester City duo Tévez and Balotelli wearing these world-renowned football boots.
The “CTR” part of the name stands for ‘Control, Touch and Response’ while “Maestri” is the Italian word for ‘master’, thus well-explaining the nature of these boots, which has persisted over time from the first and second incarnations shown above.
However, Nike has made a number of changes to come up with the Nike CTR360 Maestri III version, perhaps the most important being enhancing the revolutionary synthetic Kanga-Lite upper material with ACC (All Conditions Control) coating in order not to compromise your level of control in both dry and wet conditions.
Since its inception, the range has been famous for its instep pass and receive pads, which have been extensively revamped for this 3rd generation of the boot through the use of separate strips that hug the arch and maximise ball contact for an enhanced feel and grip of the ball.
Also gone is the raised surface of the dampening pods on the outstep, replaced by a dimpled cushioning area that looks like the surface of the moon while being there to aid your touch of the ball.
Above, you can see Abou Diaby and André Santos of Arsenal during a training session as part of the club’s pre-season Asian tour, going for the newly released Black & Crimson and launch Tour Yellow colourways respectively.
We would like to know not only which of these colour schemes you like best, but also what your experience of the entire CTR360 Maestri range by Nike actually is.
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