Luis Suarez' match worn Adidas X17+ PureSpeed Sg-Pro

Player name: Luis Alberto Suárez Díaz

Country: Uraguay

Clubs: Nacional, Groningen, Ajax, Liverpool, Barcelona

DOB: 24/07/1987

Position: Striker

Height: 6 ft 0 in

Luis Suárez is a Uruguayan professional footballer who plays as a striker for Spanish club Barcelona and the Uruguay national team. Often regarded as one of the best players in the world, Suárez has won 18 trophies in his career, which include six league titles, a UEFA Champions League title at club level, and a Copa América with Uruguay. A prolific goalscorer, Suárez has won two European Golden Shoes, an Eredivisie Golden Boot, a Premier League Golden Boot, also ending the six-year dominance of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo by winning La Liga's Pichichi Trophy in 2016. He has scored 475 senior career goals for club and country, world class numbers.

Suárez began his career as a youth player for Nacional in 2003. At age 19, he relocated to the Netherlands to play for Groningen, before transferring to Ajax in 2007. He won his first trophy in 2010, the KNVB Cup, finishing the season as the league's top scorer and was named Dutch Footballer of the Year. A year later, he helped Ajax secure the Eredivisie title, and scored his 100th Ajax goal. In January 2011, Suárez transferred to Liverpool, and won the League Cup in his first full season. In 2014, he was named the PFA Players' Player of the Year and the FWA Footballer of the Year as well as winning the Premier League Golden Boot, and sharing the European Golden Shoe with Cristiano Ronaldo before moving to Barcelona in a transfer worth €82.3 million (£64.98 million), making him one of the most expensive players in football history.

In his first season at Barcelona, Suárez starred in an attacking trio alongside Lionel Messi and Neymar, helping the club win a historic second continental treble of La Liga, the Copa del Rey and the UEFA Champions League. Messi, Suárez, Neymar (dubbed MSN), scored a total of 122 goals that season, the most for an attacking front three in Spanish football history. In his second season at the club, Suárez won his first Pichichi Trophy as well as his second European Golden Shoe, for which he became the first player since 2009 to win both awards other than Messi or Ronaldo. He ended the season with a total of 40 league goals, 14 of which came in his last five matches, and 16 assists, becoming the first player in history to top La Liga in both goals and assists.

We've managed to get our hands on a pair of Luis' match worn Adidas X17+ boots, which were worn by the striker during the La Liga winning 2017-18 season for FC Barcelona. A stunning pair in arguably the best colourway of the X17, the tactile gold from the "Skystalker" pack, which feature amazing signs of match use.

As Luis is one of Adidas' top high profile athlete's, they of course hand make his boots in their Athlete Services factory at their headquarters in Herzogenaurach, Germany. Made to his exact specifications and requirements, the gulf in overall quality between this pair and a retail version mass produced pair - which were typically made in Indonesia/China - is massive.

Suárez wore this pair in multiple big games during the 2017-18 league title winning campaign, including El Clasico at the Estadio Santiago Bernabeu on the 23rd December 2017, in which FC Barcelona famously won 0-3 with Luis scoring the opening goal.

This pair feature the stunning chrome gold Sprint Frame soleplate in the SG-Pro variation, however due to the amount of match use these have endured the chrome effect finish has worn off over time. Suarez has been known for always sticking to SG variation soleplates on pretty much every pair he has worn throughout his career, regardless of the model.

Adidas have added a personal touch to this pair for Luis by adding family names ad dates, along with the Uruguay flag. The outer heel area of the right boot features "Benja 26.09.13" which is the name and DOB of his son Benjamin, whilst the same area on the left boot features the name and DOB of his daughter Delfina "Delfi 05.08.10".

The instep areas of the Sprint Frame's also feature personalisation, however this has mostly worn off due to match use. The left boot features "Suarez 9", whilst the right has "Sofi 08.10.02", which is the name of his wife and the date in which they met. They later got married in 2009.

At international level, Suárez is Uruguay's all-time leading goalscorer, and has represented his nation at three editions of the FIFA World Cup and three editions of the Copa América, as well as the 2012 Summer Olympics, and the 2013 FIFA Confederations Cup, where he helped his team to a fourth-place finish. At the 2010 FIFA World Cup he played an important role in Uruguay's fourth-place finish, scoring three goals, as well as controversially blocking an otherwise game-winning goal-bound extra time header with his hands during the quarter-final against Ghana. At the 2011 Copa América, Suárez scored four goals as Uruguay won a record fifteenth Copa América, and he was named Player of the Tournament. At the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil, Suárez scored his 40th international goal before he was suspended from the tournament after famously biting Italy defender Giorgio Chiellini.

The TechFit collar of each boot has been made in a special shape just for Suárez, with the front being considerably lower than retail versions with it almost touching the top of the lace cover. This may be for a number of reasons such as better fitment, to accommodate for his wide feet, or to simply just make them easier getting on and off.

This pair have been made noticeably wide, especially in the forefoot area with the sides visibly bulging over the edge of the Sprint Frame.

Did you know, Suárez was born in Salto, Uruguay, the fourth of seven boys. His older brother, Paolo Suárez, is also a professional footballer, currently playing for Isidro Metapán in El Salvador. Suárez moved with his family to Montevideo when he was seven, and his parents separated when he was nine. In Montevideo, he developed his football skills on the streets, while also taking up work as a street sweeper. The contrast between his life in Europe and the poverty he left behind has been cited as contributing to his periodic aggression on the field, as well as being a possible explanation for the more forgiving attitudes of the Uruguayan public and press towards such cases, compared to Europe.

A thick layer of reinforced material has been added inside each boot, which runs the full length of each shoe. This is to add strength and some rigidity, whilst also aiding in making the boots wider as the width stretches further than that of the Sprint Frame soles. Above we can also see the barcode label in the heel area which features "502001" which is the factory number for Adidas'Athlete Services factory in Germany.

Above is a close up image of Suárez wearing this pair during a La Liga match, courtesy of Alamy photos. The partially worn off chrome effect finish on the Sprint Frame can be seen along with the Uraguary flag.

Like most pros boots, they are shaped in a way that helps prevent injury to joints such as the ankles and knees by aiding the player to put most of their body weight when running on the out step part of the foot. In the picture above we can see this from the stud wear, with the out step side stud at the rear of the boot having considerably more wear than the instep side. 

During the 2017-18 season, Luis made a total of 51 appearances in all competitions for FC Barcelona, scoring 31 goals and making 19 assists, which equates to practically 1 direct goal involvement every game. World class stats which show why Suárez has been considered one of the best strikers in world football over the past decade.