The Adidas X SPEEDPORTAL boots have dropped – with a little help from cartoon characters.
And not just Rick and Morty, the dimension-shifting Adult Swim heroes who have been drafted in by Adi to help launch the new set of X boots. Oh, no: Women's Euro 2022 star Vivianne Miedema and Liverpool talisman Mohamed Salah have both been turned 2D for this launch.
The boots themselves, fittingly, are bright green – just like the show's title cards and portals. Now, Rick Sanchez and his grandson, Morty Smith, are unlocking new dimensions of speed for the players of Earth. Call FFT big kids all you like: but we're well on board for this.
Built for speed, this new boot promises to be the sleekest, fastest, most weightless and tech-packed boot that Adidas have ever brought out in the X line of boots (formerly F50s).
“If one thing’s for certain in modern football, it’s that the game is getting faster and faster. Faster attacks, faster reactions, and faster athletes. But ‘speed’ itself is also changing with the times. Top-speed linear sprints used to dominate the game. In 2022, speed is multi-dimensional, encompassing mental quickness, positioning, space creation, and more,” said Franziska Aurnhammer, Senior Product Manager at Adidas.
The technology is, once again, staggering – making this a premier boot for speedsters.
Adidas’s innovative SPEEDFRAME technology has been updated with an even lighter sole plate designed for unreal acceleration – and there's a new multidimensional stud design gives players grip to get moving in any direction. This is one of the lightest boots on the market, for sure, though the German brand has created a new high-speed stability system which provides support, fit, and lockdown.
The material is getting lighter, too – but it's now more comfortable, too. Designed to feel better than the last boot, the new SPEEDSKIN 2.0 will be available in laceless (SPEEDPORTAL+) and laced (SPEEDPORTAL .1) models, creating what Adidas describe as "a seamless connection between boot and foot".
These ones are the first X boots to feature the new, textless Adidas logo, too. They've been spotted on players in training over the past couple of weeks, as Premier League stars return for preseason.
The SPEEDPORTAL is more minimal than its predecessor looks-wise, all over. There's the addition of a newly-designed heel, with the front of the boot reverting back to looking more like the GHOSTED boots of 2020. When you consider that the Predator Edge is actually a lot louder and busier, it makes sense.
So far, they're only available in the "Portal Fluid Green" colourway – which we're big fans of already. But that's tied into the collaboration with Rick and Morty.
The boot’s launch campaign includes a 90-second original film from the creators of Rick and Morty, in which the animated world meets the real world. Rick and Morty experiment with the possibilities of multi-dimensional speed using the X SPEEDPORTAL – with Mo Salah and Vivianne Miedema popping up in two-dimensional form.
“This 90-second short is as funny as anything Rick and Morty and as fast as whatever Rick must have put into this boot,” said Michael Ouweleen, president of Adult Swim. “It’s a collaboration that could only happen in a multiverse, and Rick, Morty, Mo Salah and Vivianne Miedema are the (fever) dream team you never knew you needed to see.”
Buy the Adidas X SPEEDPORTAL boots from Adidas
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