If the tail end of last season did not make it clear, this week’s launch of the ‘Game Data’ pack confirms it. Paul Pogba now prefers his adidas boots to come with laces! He wears the Predators still, currently under the Edge iteration, but only the high-cut .1 model. It marks the end of the Frenchman’s stint as the face of the laceless football boots, leaving the ball in adidas’ court to find another star that can fill in his shoes.
Pogba’s venture into laceless boots started with the ACE 16+ Purecontrol and continued to stay laceless even after the ACE’s transition back to the Predator. Pogba had the privilege of headlining the first Predator without laces, the Predator 18+. His leading of the + model coincided with the resurgence of the Predator’s popularity, starting with the Mutator series, with its Demonskin technology not only bringing back actual rubber elements so core to the silo’s identity but also functionally being the most grippy in ball touch. Things started to change in April 2021, when Pogba wore a laced pair of Predator Freaks. Thai football boot expert noted that this could be because Pogba lost his shoe in Manchester United’s FA quarter-final loss to Leicester in the previous month.
Pogba, however, is no stranger to laced football boots. He wore some classic Predators like the Powerswerve, X, LZ, and Instinct. Early in his career, he also had playing times with Nike’s CTR360 Maestri III and the Magistas (signalling his inclination to boots with control elements). He did try the likes of F50 Adizero and Hypervenom but eventually found his way back home to the Predator.
