With the release of his latest signature adidas f50 Leo Messi goes into the new campaign marking his 9th season as an adidas player. But his journey to becoming a four time Ballon d'Or winner didn't begin with the three stripes.
Little Leo signed a contract with Nike when he was just 14 years old as the American brand began to realise his potential. Messi made his Barcelona La Liga debut against Espanyol during the 2004/05 season wearing a pair of Air Zoom T90 III boots. Towards the end of that season Messi notched his first Barca goal wearing Nike Air Legend boots before moving in to the Mercurial range to round off all of Nike's silos.
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By the end of his first season with Barcelona the fresh faced Argentine was starting to make people sit up and take notice, including a certain three striped brand who reportedly offered Messi a £400,000 annual endorsement deal, almost £300,000 more than Nike had put on the table. Messi duly obliged and signed a five-year contract with adidas in February 2006, fighting off a legal case with Nike who were so close to having a Ronaldo/Messi combo in their armoury.
Messi hasn't always been an adidas man, the Barca star has worn the Nike Mercurial, Tiempo and T90.
Messi's addition to the adidas family resulted in an impressive line up; he joined the likes of Beckham and Zidane who were the lead players for the Predator range. Beckham was renowned for his curling free-kicks and Zidane for pulling the strings in the midfield, so where did Messi fit in to the Predator line-up? Exactly, he didn't. Messi had his own style, lightning fast, bags of skill and an eye for goal so adidas placed him in a line of boots to compliment the way he played and a line of boots which he would influence in years to come.
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Messi's relationship with the f50 began in the months leading up to the 2006 World Cup. After a brief spell in the f50+ adidas wanted to lace up their new asset in the +f50.6 tunit, the first boot where players could change the upper, outsole and sock liners. Messi, however wasn't a fan of the interchangeable sole plate and instead famously opted for the take-down f30 model with fixed studs.
Messi was notorious for wearing the takedown f30 model.
Messi became one of the faces of the f50 range and adidas had customised his boots to cater for his disliking of the sole, meaning he could comfortably wear the +f50.7, +f50.8, +f50.9 and +f50i. The year 2009 was huge for Messi, he scored in the Champions League final kissing his +f50i boot in celebration and won his first World Player of the Year award. Not a bad 12 months work.
Above: Messi celebrates scoring in the 09 UCL final. Below: Messi wears his first exclusive f50.
Following his World Player of the Year award adidas churned out two exclusive f50i colourways for Messi to go along with his signature silver +f50.9, both featured the Argentina symbol found on the country's flag. A homage to his home land and in adidas' words "a reference to Leo's playing style: Just as the Sun gives light to the World, Leo's playing style lights up entire stadiums worldwide".
By the time the 2010 World Cup arrived adidas had introduced a new f50 model for Messi to wear in South Africa; the adizero had landed as the brand's lightest boot ever made weighing in at just 165g. No luck for Messi and Argentina at the World Cup but he did manage to bag another Ballon d'Or and another exclusive gold signature f50.
adidas released a gold adizero in 2010 to celebrate Messi's second World Player of the Year Award.
A year later and it was the same story for Messi along with another Champions League final goal. Another Ballon d'Or resulted in adidas designing a celebratory pair of boots which acknowledged all three achievements, one on each of the stripes for his hat-trick of World Player of the Year awards.
2011: Messi wins his 3rd Ballon d'Or and is hooked up with another exclusive gold f50.
After wearing his signature gold and white f50s Messi moved into the adidas' new colourway, a perfect match, coincidence or not, with the Barcelona home shirt. The current f50 model landed towards the end of 2012 which tied in nicely with Leo picking up his fourth consecutive Ballon d'Or.
Messi was temporarily moved out of the yellow launch colourway to wear a one off miadidas creation against Atletico Madrid before wearing another pair of signature boots to commemorate all four of his World Player of the Year awards. Each featuring a sun to represent Argentina and the year of each Ballon d'Or.
March 2013 saw the release of Messi's new signature f50 featuring his exclusive logo. The boot was only released in a synthetic upper but Leo wore a customised leather version. Signature boot ranges aren't something adidas just dish out to anyone, before Messi only David Beckham could boast his own collection of boots.
Fast forward three months and adidas have landed another exclusive boot on the feet of Messi. The new Messi f50 features his trademark logo on the heel and is a tad more on the extravagant side than his last signature boot. With Messi on top of the world adidas have to look back to 2006 and think that was the best £400,000 they've ever spent whereas Nike must still regret letting Messi slip through their fingers.
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