Nike presents its new football shoes created for speed: the Mercurial Vapor and the Mercurial Superfly

Fashion

Credits: Nike

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In football, speed creates space. Nike has designed its new Mercurial boots to help attacking stars gain a decisive advantage and capture the spotlight on the sport's biggest stage.

Designed to foster a creative and bold playing style, the new Nike Mercurial offers two types of speed. The Vapor 17 provides incredible quickness in tight spaces, while the Superfly 11 enables breakaway speed that can be sustained in open areas for the entire match.

Credits: Nike

The Vapor is the lightest Mercurial in history, and the Superfly incorporates the most responsive speed system in the range to date.

Both leverage the best of Nike's innovation to enhance the speed of football's fastest and most agile stars, including Sam Kerr, Kylian Mbappé, Salma Paralluelo, Cristiano Ronaldo and Vini Jr.

"In football, speed isn't a statistic; it's an advantage," says James Molyneux, senior director of Football Footwear Innovation. "In today's game, footballers are asked to be fast in different ways. That's why Mercurial offers two distinct tools for them to create space when it matters most."

Credits: Nike

Both Mercurial models leverage insights gained over five decades of Nike's history as a leader in running performance innovation. They are designed to meet the need for speed in decisive plays, starts, and sprints that allow players to break away under pressure and open up crucial spaces.

Nike Mercurial Vapor 17

This is the lightest Mercurial to date. Its minimalist style, inspired by track spikes, is tailored to the needs of players who showcase their speed in tight spaces through agile movements, sharp cuts, quick turns and instant acceleration.

The design team has included only the essentials for these explosive, decisive movements. This reduces the feeling of weight throughout the match without sacrificing control.

The ultralight Atomknit upper combines with an ultra-thin FlyLite plate to offer immediate underfoot response. Rounded chevron studs are aligned to provide traction for starts, stops and rapid changes of direction.

Additionally, the striking translucent and perforated design is visually lightweight, indicating a radical weight reduction and immense speed. It conveys that the boots are designed to feel fast and unobtrusive on the foot.

"The Vapor focuses on the first step," explains Molyneux. "We have stripped away anything that doesn't contribute to speed, resulting in a minimalist design that offers perfect support and immediate response. In tight spaces, speed is about how quickly you can break free from a defender."

Nike Mercurial Superfly 11

The new Superfly features the most responsive speed system in the Mercurial range to date. Designed around Nike Air technology, it inspires a marathon-like attitude where open spaces are an advantage. Players can accelerate to their optimal pace, maintain top speed, and remain a threat in the final stages of the game when fatigue sets in.

At the core of the Superfly is a visible, external Air Zoom unit located under the metatarsals. It compresses under the real-world load of the game and responds as the foot lifts off. A new external structure stabilises the system, preserving forefoot flexibility, agility and control when braking and changing direction.

The FlyWeave Ultra upper provides a snug and secure fit. For the first time since 2014, the Superfly features a low-profile ankle collar. This promotes a natural range of motion without sacrificing support at high speed.

All the Nike football-specific innovations in the Superfly promote linear speed and sprints right up to the final whistle. This allows players to build speed step-by-step and exploit open spaces with explosive acceleration and sustained top speed.

"The Superfly is designed for players who create danger in open spaces," explains Molyneux. "The visible Air Zoom system is intentional; you can literally see the speed. It gives you the confidence to keep attacking, especially late in the game when play opens up."

During the development phase, Nike approached its new Mercurial boots from a human performance systems perspective. The company studied speed in all its forms: explosive acceleration; agility; deceleration; repeated sprints under fatigue; and the reality of speed at the end of a match. Laboratory studies were combined with long-term wear tests and field trials. The focus was on how energy is generated, managed and reused over 90 minutes or more of play.

The result is a Mercurial platform designed not for a single sprint, but to help players reach top speed repeatedly as the match progresses.

Both boots complete Nike Football's elite range of innovations. This line-up also includes the Phantom 6, designed for the most precise on-pitch attack, and the Tiempo Maestro, the choice for creative attackers who dominate with their dribbling.

The new Nike Mercurial Vapor and Superfly football boots will be available from June 1 at selected online retailers. A general release will follow in brick and mortar stores and online on June 4.

This article was translated to English using an AI tool.

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