Apart from that very odd period at the start of his career, Argentina and PSG forward Lionel Messi has always worn Adidas cleats. Pictures of him wearing Nike Total 90 boots after breaking into the Barcelona first team are so weird that they're regularly shared on social media to great shock and bewilderment.
Looking to buy a new pair of cleats? Be sure to check out FFT's best soccer cleats guide before purchasing.
Since signing with Adidas in February 2006, in a megabucks £500,000-a-year deal which has seen been dwarfed time and again, Messi has worn an array of the cleats the German sports manufacturers have produced in that time. The 35-year-old attacker has, at various points, worn the following f50 ranges: Adidas +f50.6 tunit, Adidas +f50.7, Adidas +f50.8, Adidas +f50.9 and Adidas +f50i.
After breaking with the f50 in 2017, Messi began wearing the Adidas Nemeziz 19.1 line, in either purple or white. In 2019, he switched to the Adidas Copa 19 and then went back to the next line of Nemeziz cleats in 2020.
However, since the start of the 2021/22 season, Lionel Messi has been wearing the Adidas X Speedflow.1 soccer cleat. The cleats are also worn by top stars in other leagues, including Karim Benzema of Real Madrid and Heung-min Son of Tottenham.
The boots come in a range of colourways (Cloud White/Legacy Indigo/Sky Rush) and Messi has been known to switch between these for club and country.
