This illustrated hardback charts the history of Nike’s football boots, treating them as performance equipment, design objects, and part of the wider culture of the game.

It follows the story from the all-black leather boots introduced in the early 1970s, the first shoe of any kind to carry the Nike Swoosh, through to the present day.

The book is structured around four key Nike football lines: Tiempo, Mercurial, Total 90, and Phantom.

Together, they show how the brand’s boot design developed through changing materials, player needs, technical innovation, and the visual language of each era.

Boots worn by major players sit at the centre of the story, including Brazilian striker Ronaldo, Cristiano Ronaldo, Megan Rapinoe, and Kylian Mbappé.

The focus is not just on famous names, but on how individual players helped turn specific boots into cultural reference points.

The visual archive is extensive, with 500 images covering close-up boot photography, on-feet shots, concepts, posters, advertising, film screenshots, material swatches, sketches, prototypes, and ephemera from the Department of Nike Archives.

A 12-page glossy insert displays every highlighted boot model from the archive, running from 1971 to today.

Caleb Azumah Nelson sets the scene for each chapter, looking at how the culture and style of each decade influenced the boots’ design.

Historian Thomas Turner then examines the technical innovations behind them, with an introduction by curator Eleanor Watson placing football design in a wider global context.

Hardback; 240 pages; 270mm × 205mm.

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