It's a feature we would have never thought SoccerBible would be running five years ago, but in the modern game and the modern boots market, pink football boots seem to be quite the fashion! So we've gathered six of the games most notorious, and more importantly, universally accepted pink boots...
Imagine turning the clock back ten, twenty or even thirty years, and asking icons of the time like Diego Maradona, Lothar Matthaus, Paolo Maldini and Hristo Stoichkov to wear pink football boots! Somehow we can't quite see it happening. Yet in the modern era some of the games best, including Cristiano Ronaldo, Franck Ribery, David Beckham and Nicolas Anelka have all agreed to don pink footwear.
What began as a radical and outrageous boot colour, more famous for writing headlines on looks than for performances, has now become a colour universally accepted on the football boot palette.
Pink football boots are still quite a bold statement, yet they don't cause nearly as much a reaction as the Vapor IV Berry did back in 2008. The more recent Vapor Clash and DB Predator LZ, barely even registered as being outrageous. For most players boot colour is about personal preference, and for that reason it seems we should applaud the choice now available.
Despite being more readily available, indeed three of the six boots on show here are current releases, Pink does stand out more than a blue, green or yellow. The answer for this could lie in a quote from Sensational Color's research into pink stating: “Bright pinks stimulate energy, and they also encourage action and confidence.” And confidence is certainly something the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo, David Beckham, Nicklas Bendtner, Nicolas Anelka and Franck Ribery are not lacking. Another strong statement, that your football boots are a reflection of who you are.
But enough of the psychology and meaning behind pink football boots, instead let's focus on the six great shoes we have on show here – the Vapor IV, v1.08, Vapor Superfly II, Predator DB LZ, Vapor VIII Clash and adizero Graphic.
The Pink Vapor IV was the first to make the headlines, premiered by Nicklas Bendtner and Franck Ribery (who appeared as the animated Pink Panther), the boot made headlines in 2008 like “They Pink it's all over!” and “In the pink! Fancy boots Bendtner is the Arsenal hero”.
Keen to see some pink action themselves, PUMA followed shortly after with a pink colour-up of their v1.08 in November of 2008. Nicolas Anelka, the famously enigmatic Frenchman, was used for the promotional campaign in which he was tied to a chair by a pink bikini wearing model! But for our next pink boot we were forced to wait two years, until Nike released the Vapor Superfly II Cherry in September of 2010, a boot that even rivalled it's earlier counterpart for being eye-catching.
Then like the old saying goes, about waiting for buses and three coming along, we waited a further two years for a pink football boot, and in 2012 we've seen three released. Admittedly the Predator DB LZ, adizero Graphic and Vapor VIII Clash, have all been diluted with the addition of either white or black, but there's no denying each one stands out on-pitch.
Set out together, we think all six pink football boots look good. And although we might have talked earlier about bygone era's and players, the fact is all six boots were launched in the modern era and none would look out of place on a football pitch, it's just not every football fan/player might share that opinion!.
