10 Things You Should Know About Soccer Cleats

Here is a short list of important facts we feel you should know about soccer cleats! If anything, these could turn out to be useful if you challenge a friend to an in-depth battle of wits! Well not really, but we still think they are important to know. Enjoy and let us know if you have any fun facts to share about soccer cleats!

1. The earliest recorded soccer cleats were those of King Henry VIII in 1526! There are no remaining pairs of these cleats, but the royal shopping list for footwear states: “45 velvet pairs and 1 leather pair for football”!
2. There are several soccer cleat companies that are older than Adidas(1924) and still in existence. They include Gola(1904), Valsport(1920) and Hummel(1923).
3. By 1938, more than 1,000 pairs of soccer cleats were being made each day!
4. In 1948, the competing companies of Adidas and Puma were officially formed. What is so unique about this is the fact that two brothers Adolf (Adi) and Rudolf Dassler were the brainchild’s behind Adidas before they had a falling out, and Rudolf left Adidas to create his own company, Puma!
5. Rudolf and his Puma company were the first to release interchangeable screw in soccer cleats, which they named the ‘Puma Atom’.

   

6. In the World Cup Finals of 1966, an astonishing 75% of players wore the Adidas football boot, signaling their dominance on the market at this time.
7. The best selling cleat ever to have been created is the Adidas Copa Mundial. The Copa was created in 1979 and is still a top sellar on the market today!
8. There are some relatively new companies that currently hold a big stake in the soccer cleat industry. Diadora were formed in 1977, Lotto and Kelme were formed in 1982, while Umbro were formed in 1985. Even newer companies are the likes of Reebok 1992, Uhlsport 1993, Mizuno in 1997.
9. Nike stamped their name on the soccer cleat industry in 1998 when they released the Nike Mercurial soccer cleat. They now stand among the top two biggest soccer cleat manufacturers in the world!

   

10. David Beckham’s personalized soccer cleats cost over $500 a pop to make. Beck’s is known to wear a new pair every game, and he has had feng shui symbols sewn into his cleats, along with the names of his 3 children, in a bid to improve his performance.