We’ve finally got our first look at the all-new Nike PhantomVNM, which will officially drop on Jan. 19, 2019. The boot will be worn by the likes of Harry Kane and Alex Morgan, so you can probably guess what sort of footballer these are made for.
“My finishing is a balance between power and placement,” said Morgan in Nike’s press release for the cleat. “It depends where I am in the box, but I’d say my focus is usually 60/40 accuracy versus power.”
With that in mind, it’s interesting to look at the 13 ridges placed at the instep — Nike is referring to this as the Precision Pwr strike zone, and the ridges are placed at specific angles to help keep the ball down in the event of a mis-hit while also working to give your shot that extra bit of venom.
If you want a real scientific explanation of it, here’s Nike Senior Design Director for Football Footwear Jeongwoo Lee: “We teamed up with our research lab to utilize a robotic leg to test strikes from a variety of angles with urethane injected ‘blades’ across the instep. This enabled us to go deep statistically on the impact that the various blade iterations had on accuracy, elevation, power and spin. The lab data helped us land on the exact specifications of Precision Pwr strike zone built for finishers.”
The first edition of the boot is in “total orange and black" as part of the “Game Over” collection. The cleats will reportedly retail for $250.