PUMA Mens King Cup FG Adults Football Boots Lace Up

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The 1986 World Cup was, arguably, the most memorable of all time. Argentina won it and Maradona was player of the tournament. He bagged five goals, two of which came against England. You remember them. The ‘Hand of God’ and that mazy run from the halfway line. Outrageous. The greatest World Cup goal of all time. No questions. He single-handedly – no pun intended – tore England apart whilst wearing the legendary Puma King. It was another massive success for the German sports brand. Probably their biggest yet.

So, how is it that, in just a few decades, the PUMA King has gone from halting contract negotiations and housing the twinkle toes of some of the most technically gifted footballers the planet has ever seen, to become almost entirely synonymous with the inelegant centre-half? Features of today's boot include a lightweight outsole with an external heel counter for stability and agility, an integrated stability spine for midfoot support and our sustainable, non-animal K-BETTER™ leather. Similarly, a 2019 article in the Evening Standard headlined ‘Best football boots: Nike, Adidas and top UK brands for men’ mused at length over a number of boots by the titular big-hitters, and also those by Umbro and relative new boys on the soccer scene New Balance. Nowhere did it even mention PUMA. Ahead of the King’s launch in 1968 Puma had already enjoyed great success with the Super Atom boot launched some 16 years prior. The boot’s revolutionary design was the first to feature screw-in studs. It was the start of a long-lasting relationship between Puma and football, and that relationship was taken to new heights with the KING. Pele and the KING (1970)

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By the ’80s, the boot was having an equally profound impact off the pitch, too. Lothar Matthäus, the talismanic German midfielder with 150 caps to his name and whose father had worked at the nearby Puma factory when Lothar was a child, was initially hesitant to sign to Bayern Munich (whose technical supplier was Adidas) from Borussia Mönchengladbach if it meant he was no longer permitted to wear his beloved PUMA brand. The excellent Puma King Classic Di, meant to be their premium leather boot was discontinued and in its place, the Puma King Top was released as budget option for the weekend warrior. Of the ubiquitous ingredients constituting any quintessential Sunday morning scrap, there is one brand of football boot that, for many, encapsulates the endearing madness better than any other: the PUMA King. But where the likes of the Adidas Predator and the Nike Mercurial Vapor have flourished, the PUMA King has failed to follow suit. In December of 2019, a listicle published by popular online football publication SoccerBible ranked what were they believed to be the greatest 30 boots of the last decade. Naturally, subjectivity plays its part, but there was a notable omission: despite new models, the famed PUMA King failed to make the cut. One need only watch Pelé and Brazil’s mesmeric World Cup triumph of 1970, or Asif Kapadia’s recent Diego Maradona documentary to be reminded, not merely of the undeniable genius possessed by both men on the pitch and the very different personal lives that distinguish them off it, but, more simply, of what tangibly links them: what they wore on their feet.

I’m surprised they didn’t reuse the soleplate from previous Puma Future or Puma One models which, while not spectacular, did a solid job in providing manoeuvrability and a natural, comfortable flex. A King that needs to change with the times It’s a question that seems at once entirely trivial and greatly intriguing when one considers the kind of glittering legacy such a boot has behind it. For astro turf surfaces, our King top TT boots are the options for you. With all of these classic features you'd expect from the King boot, but with a rubber outsole designed for superior traction on more slippery astro turf surfaces. For a classic look on astro-turf pitches, look no further than our King TT trainers. Perhaps it comes down to an issue of quality, whereby PUMA Kings have simply failed to evolve as well as other brands. Or perhaps, with the rapid advances in technology, and the ever-expanding scope for meticulous designs and modern materials, it’s PUMA’s apparent reluctance to deviate too far from the classic King of yesteryear means that it simply isn’t that fashionable anymore. And perhaps it is this perception of the PUMA King, borne out of a seemingly romantic sense of nostalgia — during today’s era of constant change and ever-increasing flamboyance — that lends itself perfectly to being the natural accompaniment to the type of player it is now associated with. Loyal, dependable, unglamorous.

In 1981 a young Diego Maradona burst onto the scene. He was magic. Breathtaking. He did things with a football nobody had ever witnessed. And like they’d done so many times before Puma wasted no time in making the game’s new golden child one of their athletes. Once again, it was a master-stroke. Both are complex questions, of course, with answers that cannot so readily be nailed down. Economics, politics, marketing and, of course, the corporate behemoths that have come to govern and define the modern game all now play a fundamental role in determining what a player decides to wear on his or her feet.