Soccer Cleats 101 Soccer Cleats News and Reviews
This season’s Champions League final is set to take place at the Principality Stadium in Wales in early June. As a way to celebrate that, adidas has released an inspired new Limited Collection boot range known as the “Dragon Pack”. The latest boot drop features design elements of a striking dragon print, combined with the usual technical innovations.
When it comes to X16+ Purechaos, the design is in your face angry, intended to set a statement. It isn’t tough to discern the Dragon graphic, as it pops dramatically on the primary pearl white upper. Across the midfoot, the snarling Dragon spits a arrow-like red flame, directing it intentionally towards your opponents foot. Let it be a warning sign that you are about to set the pitch alight, and if that doesn’t work your opponents foot is going to bear the brunt of your power! Up close, you will also notice that the graphic wraps around the heel and actually continues underfoot with a mix of deep Blue and Black combining to create a scale like appearance.
Find this Limited Collection Purechaos available at soccer.com.
In terms of the forefoot, adidas add a fresh white covering to the highly defined Purechaos upper, giving it a pretty dramatic 3D appearance. One of the standout key visual features comes via the PureCut collar, where a distinguished blue and black cris-cross design creates a matrix style effect. Overall, these are pretty special and the Graphic is very dynamic, perfect if you like to standout. Although, you do need to push past the inflated price ($320) if you want to secure a pair.
In terms of performance, they are a very effective boot. The highly textured upper is plenty soft, ensuring you have excellent feel on the ball. adidas has labelled it “TechFit” and it is made of a synthetic material that is a lot more pliable than it looks in images. You can easy bend it between your fingers. It is basically an overlay that covers the laces and adds some added touch benefits on the ball through the forefoot. The outer side has plenty of texture thanks to an an “NSG”, or Non Stop Grip, lining. Each piece of the lava like pattern is raised very slightly off the surface of the boot. This helps by adding extra grip and friction as you look to control and move with the ball at you feet and you definitely experience that as you dribble with speed. These do feature laces, that you can tuck in under the front cover once the they are tied.
Underfoot, adidas has returned to a SprintFrame, something you might recall as being the soleplate of choice for the adiZero series. The difference on this version is a switch to slightly off-conical shaped studs. Out of the box, the plate itself is decently stiff with some solid spring back. Over the first few wears, it loosened up nicely through the forefoot while keeping solid support through the midfoot spine region.
If you do decide to pick up a pair, note that they come in a larger white “Limited Collection” box, with an additional set of insoles and a white canvas style boot bag.
Limited pairs of the “Dragon Pack” X16+ Purechaos are available at soccer.com.
