Hipster Corner – Ronaldinho’s Nike Tiempo Air Legend R10.
A boot that prompted a viral video, we take a look at Ronaldinho's magical boots the Nike Tiempo Air Legend R10
In 2005 Nike released a promotional video on YouTube in which Barcelona’s Ronaldinho received a pair of white and gold Nike Tiempo football boots. Dubbed the R10 for good measure, the Brazilian dons the gilded boots and begins to juggle the ball before unleashing a volley that cannons off the crossbar and straight back to his chest.
He controls the ricochet expertly, continues to juggle the ball a few more times before once again unleashing a shot that strikes the crossbar and bounces back to the Barca number 10 once more. This goes on in a nonchalant fashion a few times and we are treated to what appears to be a casual training session for the then World Player of the Year.
Such was the intrigue of this cleverly edited commercial, that it became YouTube’s first video to reach a million views. Propelling Ronaldinho and more importantly, his patented R10 Tiempo boots into early internet viral fame. At the time it was the boot for recreational players to buy, the boot players believed would inspire them to perform flip flaps, no-look passes and samba styled slaloming.
During the mid 2000s, people had started to come around to the idea of coloured football boots, especially in an era when all that had existed prior was the predominantly black boot.
It was an era in which Thierry Henry and David Beckham were shining in white, Ronaldo Nazario too had dazzled in Blue and silver, but white and gold?
Ronaldinho was the chief exponent of that particular colour scheme and would inevitably pave the way for other famous white and gold colour schemes, notably the Nike Vapors and Nike Superfly, worn by Cristiano Ronaldo.
Key features for the R10 boot included a k-leather upper with leather gold Swoosh, 5 stars across the heel, a gold fold-over tongue with R10 branding and a Gold into Silver Chrome finish on the soleplate. The soft leather stitching is said to give the user more control (sadly that was not the case for this writer).
The R10 went down as such an iconic football boot, that it got a limited edition re-release in 2018, almost 13 years after it first hit the stores.
Ronaldinho has just been released from a Paraguayan jail for possession of an illegal passport. What the future holds for the former World Player of the Year is unsure, but for those who watched Ronaldinho tear into sides from 2004 and 2008, their memories will be made all the sweeter by recalling the flurry of the gold and white boot.