Adidas Predator Series the Legacy

Adidas Predator Series the Legacy

This is our second piece in the two-piece series about the evolution of football’s biggest and most popular boots ever. In the earlier piece we trailed Mercurial’s journey, now we’ll follow the evolution of Adidas Predator boots.

There is quite a story about how Predators became such a brand, which it is nowadays. Predators were invented by an Australian footballer named Craig Johnston, who after retirement from professional football contemplated on developing a pair of boots which assisted in better control of the ball for players. He developed its first prototype in 1994 and submitted it to Adidas. But did you know that Adidas rejected the Predators design in its entirety?

In earlier days, football boots were made of leather. So Johnston experimented with the idea of using rubber as the topmost layer of a shoe. But it wasn’t accepted by any major boot maker in those days. Johnston, then had to gate crash Bayern Munich’s Board of Directors meeting to convince legendary Franz Beckenbauer, Karl Heinz-Rumminege and Paul Breitner to try his latest boots.

The legends obliged and the Aussie inventor filmed their trial. The trio was very impressed with the first touch and the ease with which they could control and pass the ball around. Johnston, then showed this film to Adidas, who were convinced about the product’s design and bought rights of the Predator prototype and gave Johnston a 2% share of all sales.

Predator Series 

There have been 12 different predator models, with a cheaper version without all the predator technology going by a different name. For example the Predator Pulse's budget variant was called the Pulsado.

Predator (1994)

Rapier (1995)

Touch (1996)

Accelerator (1998)

Precision (2000)

Mania (2002)

Pulse (2004)

Absolute (2006)

PowerSwerve (2007

Predator X (2009)

AdiPower Predator (2011)

Predator Kinetic SL (Elite Version)

Predator LZ (2012)

Predator LZ 2 (2013)

Predator Instinct (2014)

Predator Pulse Advert

Stars who have adorned the Predators over the years - David Beckham, Xavi,Robin van Persie, Michael Ballack, Raúl González, Steven Gerrard, Dirk Kuyt, Kolo Touré, Edwin Van Der Sar, Brad Friedel, Anderson, Eiður Guðjohnsen, Fernando Torres, Oscar, Petr Cech, Aaron Ramsey, Mesut Ozil, Per Mertesacker, Ángel Di María, Xabi Alonso and Juan Mata.

Zinedine Zidane tested and reviewed Predator X for Adidas.