It's gotta be the shoes

I've played soccer for 30 years, and along the way I've noticed some universal truths. One of them is that each team will have at least one player who is what I will term a "shoe snob". You know, the guy who buys 3 pairs at one time and sends them all back cause one stud is mispositioned or shows up to the game with the latest edition of the Force Frame TF III Dominator in electric pink from some company no one has ever heard of. I admit, there have been times when I've been that guy.

Well, I have great news for those types. Both Nike and Adidas have released websites for players to customize shoes to fit and form. Nike has come out with NikeID while Adidas has it's own miAdididas.

To give you an idea of what you can do, I created some samples. Now, before you say to yourself, "What is this dude thinking?", please note that I am not responsible for the color scheme. The team I play for has the most… um… interesting color scheme going. Light blue and burgundy/maroon, with black, yellow and green trim.

With that in mind, here are my best attempts at shoes that would fit the team's color scheme.

Nike Air Legend II

Hmm, the silver makes it look space-agey. Is that a word?

Nike Talaria IV

This may be my favorite. Pretty simple and the colors might actually match the uniform.

Nike Total90

Hmm, the ugly black and red plastic on the front just doesn't do it for me.

Adidas F50 TUNiT

I like the muted color scheme here, but I'm not a fan of the wrap around stripes.

Adidas Predator Power Swerve

This is the Beckham shoe. The yellow may be a bit overPOWERing for my SWERVE.

Adidas adiPURE TRX FG

Brown is the only base color available for this model. While I'm not in love with it, I do like the burgundy that wasn't available in the other Adidas models, and my professional graphic artist wife thinks this would work the best with our kits.

After all that, I don't know that I'll take the plunge. I'm a Puma guy with a foot that tends to be a little too wide for both Adidas and Nike. I would definitely have to try on each of the styles for size before I'd send them $100-200 to custom build the shoes.

What's your verdict? Can you come up with some sweet designs. Feel free to share.