adidas F50 Rises from the Ashes

June 16, 2024

Cleats are the fundamental feature of any footballer’s on-pitch identity, offering an opportunity for us to separate ourselves from the other 10 players wearing the same badge and kit. The F50's absence left me and a great deal of the football market in a decade-long identity crisis, trying to fill in the shoes of what the iconic silhouette once offered us: lightning-quick speed and an opportunity to mirror the greatness of prime Messi, who embodied a god amongst men with his F50s laced. As we emerge from the tunnel for the last 45 of 2024’s 90, our prayers are answered with the F50’s resurrection led by adidas’ SVP of Product and Design, Sam Handy, who reintroduces Messi as the face of the line along with a fresh cast of football’s speedsters, including Jude Bellingham, Ousmane Dembélé, Trinity Rodman and Cavan Sullivan.

By Jack Kissane
Photos courtesy of adidas

As a lad, I naturally bought into the F50’s undeniable allure — well, actually, my parents did, as I was only 8 when I first laced up my Infrared F50 Adizeros. I was inspired by watching players like David Villa, who wore the cleats and embodied the product’s ethos of speed and precision to a tee — a sentiment that remains present today as I set my uni’s intramural league ablaze like David Villa once did for Barcelona in the early 2010s. In essence, these cleats were my first love. They helped me delusionally compensate for my natural lack of pace, which kept me far from the wing and rather tucked in as a holding/attacking mid for most of my career. But more than that, the cleats made the sport feel so much more real for me as I only continued to fall deeper in love with the beautiful game. Moreover, as many F50-sporting players can attest, the boots' influence reaches far beyond the field. I vividly remember the countless hours playing FIFA Street, where I dressed my players head to toe in F50 tracksuits with retrospectively hideous track capris that left plenty of room for the indoor model of the F50s to be seen. I say this all to illustrate how the line made an irreplicable and long-lasting impression on footballing culture on and off the pitch, and the hype surrounding its reintroduction is an undeniable testament to that.

This new chapter couldn’t have come at a better time for U.S. soccer fans and players alike as we gear up for an exciting era for the sport, highlighted by this summer’s Copa América, and the closely trailing 2026 World Cup, both taking place within the States. The anticipation for the sport and the state of U.S. Soccer as a whole was on another level during the June 10th event hosted at the new adidas Fútbol Society space in Williamsburg. The event featured a collection of their new Copa kits, including Argentina, Mexico, Peru, and Jamaica jerseys on display, along with the highly anticipated F50 cleats, framed against retro adidas memorabilia, adding historical context to the iconic line. To cap off the event, we sat down with Trinity Rodman of the USWNT and Sam Handy, who articulated what everyone felt in the room: Soccer is very much alive and well in the States, and thank god we can put our trusty F50s back in the rotation and wrap up that little decade-long identity crisis adidas put us through.

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