Zinedine Zidane's Match Worn, Photo-Matched, Dual Signed Adidas Predator Pulse Football Boots, Worn During The 2004/05 Season

 

 

What we present here are museum level pieces of history, simply, art. A match worn piece from any top player is beyond difficult to acquire, but something used on the pitch by an icon, a maestro, a legend the level of the great Zinedine Zidane? That, is an entirely different level of difficulty. In this blog, we will delve into the depths of the unique and, quite honestly, beautiful details on these pairs of Adidas Predator Pulse football boots which were used to create magic on the grass by the wonderful, wonderful Zizou back in the 2004/05 season with Real Madrid & France. Used in La Liga & UEFA Champions League fixtures for Los Blancos, these fine pieces of memorabilia certainly freeze & capture an iconic period in football history, bringing it into the present day in a physical sense.

 

"Technically, I think he is the king of what's fundamental in the game – control and passing. I don't think anyone can match him when it comes to controlling or receiving the ball." - Michel Platini.

 

 

Taking a look at the internal size labels, we can see that Zidane used a size UK9.5, 10 in US sizing, during this period of his career (on the left is the label from the X-TRX SG pair & on the right, that of the X-TRX FG pair). However, as the ‘MTM’ detailing indicates, this pair were indeed Made To Measure, making them, in-turn, not an exact regular size UK9.5 due to them being custom made to the exact measurements & specifications of Zizou’s feet. Unlike the mass produced retail model of the Adidas Predator Pulse, the brand with the Three Stripes had their craftsmen manufacture Zidane’s actual boots by hand inside their Athlete Services factory located in Herzogenaurach, Germany, by the brand’s HQ. This factory was made with the sole purpose of creating the best equipment pieces for their top sponsored athletes, echoing their motto ‘Only The Best For The Athlete’. The boots for the likes of Lionel Messi, Lamine Yamal, Jude Bellingham & co are all specifically hand crafted there, the same goes for the best Adidas wearers of the past, such as Toni Kroos, Gareth Bale, Xavi, Steven Gerrard, and so on. The players at the very elite level of the beautiful game need the tools of their trade to give them the optimal performance, hence why the big brands like Adidas ensure that they go to the ends of the earth to make that happen. They do this by listening to the player’s feedback of what they do and don’t like on their footwear, from learning which type of upper materials are their preference to whether they prefer ultra lightweight or reinforced, more sturdy boots, everything is bespoke, tailor made. On top of all of this, the equipment tends to be of a much higher build quality, with more premium materials and an all-round more thorough manufacturing process, which is to ensure that the products do not fail on the pitch. When the public see these boots being used by the stars on the biggest stages in world football, this is essentially the advertisement stage for the retail product, just imagine if one were to fail under the eyes of the world… it would have a catastrophic affect on the rate of sale for the consumer product.

 

 

The Adidas Predator Pulse, like all of the old-school models in the Predator silo, was renowned for its beautiful design, premium materials like the supple leather and the high build quality making for nice reliable and durable football boots. However, Adidas managed to build on top of all of that for the version supplied to their elite level players, with the likes of Zinedine Zidane as seen here, Steven Gerrard, Raul, Patrick Viera, David Beckham, and so on, receiving their custom versions presenting the highest of bespoke build quality. Taking a close up look at the upper on Zidane’s pairs here, we can see that the quality of the leather is absolutely out of this world. Taking into account the fact that these boots are 20+ years old now, one world expect the leather to have lost its supple nature, however, it has held up perfectly on both pairs even to this day, representing just how premium the leather used on these pairs actually is. Also seen here on the upper, specifically on the lateral to top side of the forefoot vamp, are additional lines of stitching. These are there to ensure that the leather doesn’t stretch and lose its shape, as would usually be the case with any premium, expensive type of leather. A good example of this is the type of leather used on the interior of a premium car such as a Ferrari would stretch easily due to its delicate nature, whereas the equivalent on a low end car would be more focussed on being robust and durable. These extra lines of stitching also help to provide the custom upper with more structure.

 

"Zidane is the master. Over the past ten years, there's been no one like him, he has been the best player in the world." - Pelé.

 

 

 

The Predator model is, and always has been, known for its iconic foldover tongue design and black/red/white colourway design, what we see here fully capture that history, with the pairs here being in that iconic, simplistic colour scheme combined with the beautiful red tongues. The tongues themselves have been crafted from the very same custom leather that was used for the uppers of the boots, making them beautifully supple, even now 20+ years on. Looking at how the elite level Pred wearers were positioning the tongues on their boots became a standard and muscle memory-like action with every match, seeing David Beckham wear his right down as far as possible to the toe box area, compared to Steven Gerrard usually opting for a middle position of the tongue with the elastic band wrapping around the middle of the studs in the forefoot area.

 

 

 

Zizou however, differing to the likes of Becks & Stevie G, tended to wear his tongue in a ‘no nonsense’ type of fashion, with the strap being wrapped around the midfoot area of the boots, away from the studs, revealing just the small section of the tongue itself, leaving the Three Stripes logo just about fully visible. Still to this day these player preferences & details are fascinating to boot heads like ourselves. On the X-TRX FG model of Zidane’s match worn pair seen here, the tongue on each boot has been beautifully hand signed by the man himself, each with a stunningly clear & un-rushed autograph. This is a very, very, rare detail for any match worn piece from Zizou’s illustrious career, making them just that bit extra magical. They would certainly not look out of place in the Louvre.

 

Widely regarded as one of the greatest of all time, Zinedane Zidane has made his impact on the beautiful game with many jaw dropping moments. But behind all of his success, which pair of boots come to mind?

Here’s our top 5 in chronological order (with the exclusion of the Pulse):

1. Copa Mundial (1994)

Most of us would remember seeing Zidane in different generations of the adidas Predator, but did you know he actually wore the Copa Mundial as a 22 year old whilst debuting for France? It only took him 40 minutes to score on his debut for the national team. No doubt, it was a screamer, and 3 minutes later he scored again to draw his team level with Czech Republic. A memorable introduction for Zidane into the French national team, matched with a pair of classical boots - the Copa Mundial. Much like a retro car, any player who owns a pair of Copa Mundials will say that they are the best boots to have ever been made. Introduced in the 70s - almost no changes have been made to date, which shows how great of a boot this is. Especially when it comes to comfort and fit. Immediately recognisable, the soft black leather upper, fold over tongue and simple stitching design makes it a nostalgic no-nonsense boot. No wonder why it was once on Zidane’s foot. By no surprise, Zidane was labeled as the face of the Predator franchise by adidas shortly after.

2. Predator Accelerator (1998)

1998 World Cup Final, Zidane scores twice, wins the match and becomes a national hero. On foot - the Predator Precision. An eye-catching mix of heritage and innovation made it the best boot on the market. The signature rubber elements on the forefoot with bold three-stripes on the lateral side of the boot, along with a traditional fold-over tongue really became the base for the Predator franchise from here on.

 

3. Predator Preicision (2000)

 

Euro 2000 saw Zidane lead France to victory and also be awarded the player of the tournament.This entire campaign saw him wearing the Predator Precision, a silhouette update following the 98 Accelerator. Here, the Predator had transitioned from bold rubber fins, to more elegant and lighter rubber ribs which was believed to produce increased curve on the ball whilst reducing weight on the boot. Did this give Zizou an extra edge in the tournament? Adidas would say so.

 

 

The boots Zidane famously wore when he got the whole world off their seats by scoring that sublime volley past Bayern Leverkusen in the Champions League final of 2002. Continuing the signature Black/Red/White colourway for this sixth generation of the adidas Predator, it was another stand out season being played out on Zidane’s feet. Arguably the most elegant of the generations - the improved placement of the tongue kept the laces tucked in without distraction, while an added heel counter gave the boots additional heel protection and ankle support. Top innovation appreciated by any midfielder at the time. The boots, the volley, the champions league final victory for Real Madrid instantly made this an iconic moment the football world will never forget.

 

To round off the list, we have the Predator Absolutes which Zidane infamously wore in his last ever match as a professional football player in the 2006 World Cup. As most of the attention closed in on his headbutt towards Materazzi, boot nerds all around the world appreciated the gold Absolutes on his feet. Zizou went on taking out the Golden ball award which gave this pair an even more meaningful story.

 

Now taking a peak inside Zizou’s custom, match worn, Predators, the first detail that jumps out of us on the X-TRX FG model is to do with the insoles. Going back in time, with Adidas’ top end models of the boots back in the day they tended to supply two sets of insoles, as well as other extras. However the ones found here in Zidane’s FG pair are actually neither of what would’ve been accompanying a retail pair, they are actually in fact from the X-TRX SG model, designed to work with the thick and solid metal bladed soleplate system. With that element, they were thicker than the ones made for the X-TRX FG model to withstand the extra pressures that those metal blades would present. Perhaps Zinedine preferred the feeling of wearing the thicker, slightly more padded insoles than the normal FG versions, regardless of whether he was wearing his FG or SG pair on the pitch.

 

 

The avid football  boot-heads out there may remember that, in the earlier stages of his career, Zidane often used to wear tape over the back of his boots, covering the entirety of the heel tab area, in order to prevent blistering. As we mentioned earlier in this blog, Adidas have always gone to, and still do to this day of course, the N’th degree to ensure that the equipment made for and supplied to their players is of the absolute pinnacle in every area to allow them to perform at their peak. Adidas did exactly that to try and rectify the issue ZZ was experiencing with this blistering, by making differing heel designs in order to try and counteract this. With the match worn pairs we see here, those custom heel designs are in fact present, with an incredibly unique design, which rather sadly, is much harder to see in pictures than in person. The heels themselves are raised by around 13mm over the standard retail model, and have a much different curvature, padding and structure all together, especially at the very top of the heel tab. The cushioning of the interior of the heel area lining appears to be specifically thicker and thinner in certain areas to work with Zidane’s specific heel shape.

 

 

 

When removing the X-TRX SG insoles will expose further modifications to Zidane’s version over the standard retail model, providing a visual look into the custom insole boards which have been incorporated into each of the boots. This is a type of modification that we still see today within modern models of football boots used by the elite level players, across all brands, not just Adidas. Players such as Gavi wearing Nike, Neymar wearing Puma, as well as Jude Bellingham wearing Adidas, among others, all have a recurring theme of these different insole boards being build into their custom boots. These boards are there to provide additional strengthening and reinforcement to the boots themselves, which in-turn helps with the stability of the player on the pitch. The boards seen here inside Zidane’s match worn Adidas Predator Pulse are the same as those seen in other pairs of the same model worn by different players in the same time period, of which we can compare in-hand with pairs worn by Steven Gerrard & Patrick Viera. It has been a common theme for decades that the elite level professional players all seem to request their made-to-measure footwear to be of a more structured, stiffer and reinforced nature.

 

  

It is a commonly known fact among football fans, boot-heads or not, that the players get to wear their boots with personalisation details on them. Whilst the general public are rather limited on what they can do in this area, with the main retailers either offering no personalisation options at all, or services which can add names with a 5-6 character limit, the sponsored professionals can have whatever they wish added to their pairs. This commonly tends to be details such as their name, squad number, their national flags, or family names such as their children as well as DOB’s. However, we have seen some rather interesting personalisation on match worn boots we have had in stock here at BC Boots UK over the years which have stood out from the common trend, such as Romelu Lukaku who has personal messages relating to his faith and his family such as ‘I Belong To Him’ & ‘Mom You’re My Inspiration’, Antoine Griezmann with interesting emojis added to his pairs and Paulo Dybala with his phrase ‘The Captain Of My Soul’.

 

 

It is always fascinating to find what messages and details the top players have added to their boots to carry with them on the pitch, however, a lot of players keep it minimalistic by adding very few details. Zidane is of the latter, with his pairs featuring simply his name ‘Zidane’ to the lateral side of the upper on each boot. With Adidas, these details were usually embroidered on most models pre-2012, however since then, the details are printed/heat-applied to the players boots. This still makes for wonderful detailings, however, we believe that you just can’t beat the old school embroidered personalisation, with the modern day heat-applied versions usually falling away from the boots with the more that they get worn by the player. As we can see on Zidane’s pairs from 2004/05 here, the detailings are beautifully embroidered into the leather upper material in a stunning silver colour. Interestingly, this was done early on in the manufacturing process, as the embroidery of ‘Zidane’ cannot be seen from the inside of the boots, which shows that it was applied to the leather prior to the interior lining being added in the build of the boots by Adidas’ craftsmen inside the Herzogenaurach Athlete Services factory. This process is different now, whereby the printed personalisation detailings are added to the boots as the final stage of the manufacturing process.

 

The pairs seen here were used by the great Galactico Zizou in a HUGE list of fixtures during the 2004/05 season. To see a pair or two worn in this sheer amount of matches in the modern era is very, very, rare due to the amount of boots that the players are supplied with from their sponsors. But back then in the early-mid, even the latter, 2000’s players were not supplied with a huge quantity of boots on a regular basis. Taking into account the fact that Zidane was one of Adidas’ top sponsored athletes at the time, he would’ve been supplied with more than most and yet, it still wasn’t a lot at all by todays standards. This makes match worn pairs much, much more scarce which leads to the demand for such pieces to massively outweigh the supply. Where a minimal amount of pairs are used for multiple matches over a long duration of time, it means that when looking at details such as the wear on the boots, it can be tracked and traced from match pitctures from the first the player used them in, to the last. This is not always the case today as players may only use a singular pair of boots once, however this does vary from player to player, with the likes of Mbappe liking to stick to one pair for as long as possible until he has to wear the next colourway/model, or Trent Alexander-Arnold who regularly changes to new boots. Below, we have listed the matches in which Zinedine Zidane actually wore these pieces of history, from scoring the opening goal in El Clasico in front of the Madridistas at the Estadio Santiago Bernabeu to thrashing Racing Santander in a forth straight La Liga win.

 

Date	Fixture & Result	Stadium	Competition	Pair
01/08/2004	Tokyo Verdy 0-4 Real Madrid	Ajinomoto Stadium	Tokyo Pre-Season Tour	X-TRX FG
03/11/2004	Dynamo Kyiv 2-2 Real Madrid	Stadion Dynamo im. Valeriy Lobanovskiy	UEFA Champions League	X-TRX FG
16/01/2005	Real Madrid 3-1 Real Zaragoza	Estadio Santiago Bernabéu	La Liga	X-TRX SG
05/02/2005	Real Madrid 4-0 Espanyol (ZZ scored the opening goal)	Estadio Santiago Bernabéu	La Liga	X-TRX SG
15/02/2005	Ronaldinho XI 6-3 Shevchenko XI	Camp Nou	Football For Hope	X-TRX FG
19/02/2005	Real Madrid 0-2 Athletic Bilbao	Estadio Santiago Bernabéu	La Liga	X-TRX SG
22/02/2005	Real Madrid 1-0 Juventus	Estadio Santiago Bernabéu	UEFA Champions League	X-TRX SG
09/03/2005	Juventus 2-0 AET Real Madrid	Delle Alpi	UEFA Champions League	X-TRX SG
20/03/2005	Real Madrid 1-0 Malaga	Estadio Santiago Bernabéu	La Liga	X-TRX SG
10/04/2005	Real Madrid 4-2 FC Barcelona (ZZ scored the opening goal)	Estadio Santiago Bernabéu	La Liga	X-TRX SG
17/04/2005	Levante 0-2 Real Madrid	Ciutat de València	La Liga	X-TRX FG
23/04/2005	Real Madrid 2-1 Villarreal	Estadio Santiago Bernabéu	La Liga	X-TRX SG
07/05/2005	Real Madrid 5-0 Racing	Estadio Santiago Bernabéu	La Liga	X-TRX SG
14/05/2005	Sevilla 2-2 Real Madrid	Ramón Sánchez-Pizjuán	La Liga	X-TRX SG
21/05/2005	Real Madrid 0-0 Atlético Madrid	Estadio Santiago Bernabéu	La Liga	X-TRX SG
28/05/2005	Real Zaragoza 1-3 Real Madrid	La Romareda	La Liga	X-TRX SG

 

Zidane wore this model & colourway of the Adidas Predator for more than an entire season, with him using them from the beginning of the UEFA Euro tournament with the France national team in the summer of 2004, right up until pre-season in the summer of 2005 in preparation for the 2005/06 season with Los Blancos, where he changed to the not too dissimilar version, with the same black base and red tongues, combined with the Three Stripes being black instead of white - an equally as classy colourway, although one that’s certainly in the eyes of the football boot head, not a patch on the OG black/red/white.

 

To sum it up, for us, having sublime pieces of footballing history such as these here, made available at BC Boots UK is a true privilege. These one-off pieces are certainly something that one does not come across every day and are very much belonging for the best collection displays in the world, or indeed, museums. Please do let us know your thoughts on these beautiful works of art in the comment section below.