As part of the Nike Air Blueprint Pack, the Swoosh brand has given us a glimpse of the 2024 Nike Air Mercurial. The pack is meant to optimise the proprietary Air technology in Nike’s varied arsenal of footwear. And in this case its premium football boot is one of those that will showcase Air and its performance benefits. It is also a way for Nike to flex its access to elite athletes that provide them a great deal of feedback, allowing them to continuously improve and innovate how Air works on the football pitch. Retailing now in July, the new Mercurials miss the Euro and Copa America but will be there just in time for the 2024 Olympics in Paris.
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Flex grooves from the Strobel unit have been removed with the aim of increasing the overall responsiveness of the outsole. In turn, Nike has added a series of cascading studs on the Zoom Air window to assist in surface traction.
Just based on the clip, I do see that the 2024 Mercurials will have some variation in the execution of Nike’s knit material for the upper. And that is true as the toe box is comprised of Flyknit, Gripknit and AtomKnit, a new Nike knit material that represents the tapered quarter to shave off weight. Per Nike themselves,
The team reduced the thickness of the Flyknit upper from five layers of material to three layers, or by nearly 30 percent, making it more mouldable to the foot and the lightest and thinnest full Flyknit upper ever for Nike Football.
The key phrase here is the ‘full Flyknit upper.’ It does seem that the latest Mercs follow the basic structural makeup of the likes of Superfly 6-7/Vapor 12-13. From the looks of it, Flyknit is the base upper material, while Gripknit provides the sticky ball grip and AtomKnit the structural reinforcement.
Mercurial Vapor 16 Elite
Control has now been incorporated to the Mercurials. Thanks to the successful implementation of Gripknit in the Phantom line, Nike now brings the ball grip technology into the fully-knitted upper of the latest Mercurial. It also introduces AtomKnit, a stronger variation of Flyknit, to provide the structural integrity of the upper.
There’s also some adjustments to the headline Zoom Air technology. For one, Nike decided to remove the flex grooves on the strobel unit itself, opting instead to optimise the flexibility of the plate. Additional speed fins (or mini-studs, in my opinion) are placed on the Zoom Air window. And this is where another change has been made. The studs are back to a combination of blades and chevrons, so for anyone who really liked that aggressive traction and bite of this kind of configuration, you may look forward to this new-gen release.
Kids Mercurial Vapor Pro
It noticeably drops the laceless setup in favour of a more familiar central laced closure. The upper is slight modified to be more stretchy and adaptable to the growth of young players, while giving as much of the Elite Zoom Air experience as possible.
Colourway-wise, the boot is mainly white with blue for the Swoosh and the AIR embossed branding on the heel. The Swoosh has a ragged application while the blue on the AIR branding has a spraypaint-like effect. Company cofounder Bill Bowerman served as the inspiration for the theme of the Air Blueprint pack. It is said that Bill would use a ballpen to dot a Swoosh on the sides of spikes, all for saving the weight from stitching a logo. It’s a nice touch to have one of the brand’s key person and his obsession with athlete performance represented in this pack.
