Under Armour

Ahhh, my home state flag. I have seen this CF in person, but not the Speedform. The upper on the CF is much more plastic feeling than the standard model. One store near me is selling the CF, but to my knowledge they have fallen flat in sales.

They may have some life with high school lax bros though if UA doesn't drop a similar high top lax/football specific pair. The lax bros here are a special breed of MD flag lovers and will wear anything that reps the state flag, especially if it totally clashes with their school uniform.

 

I was there too...I saw their products for the 2017 season and what is being developed for 2018 as well. Some interesting stuff and the Clutchfit 3.0 coming in 2017 is pretty sweet.

 

Yeah he was...we shared a head nod and hello, lol. I was actually planning to speak with him regarding the UA products and I was going to be very up-front with him about my criticisms of some of the projects he worked on at adidas, but he was stuck in a interview that wouldn't end. I was standing there listening in and it was just dragging on. I had to go after a while to catch some coaching sessions and couldn't get back to him in time.

I really wanted to see if the problems that happened with adidas were him, adidas or some volumetric mix of the two. Honestly, I was hoping my opinion of his work at adidas would change with meeting him and hearing that adidas lost the plot, not that he was more of less the Vince Russo (mid 90's wrestling reference) of the boot world.

Regardless, I got some contact info for some of the higher ups at UA with their soccer line and plan to keep in touch. Being that I am in Bmore and so are they I am sure that I will catch up with AZ at some point.

 

The "Spotlight" is the "Speedform 2" as UA views it...the evolution of the line. It will feature the Speedform insole concept, with extra grip pads (TruSox killer). The latter aspect is funny to me because Kevin Plank's (UA founder) brother had a falling out with Kevin and has since helped TruSox with their funding and development. It is a nice little slap in the face and adds some flavor to a Baltimore aka Smalltimore battle.

I think we are going to have to wait and see a bit as the 2017 and 2018 stuff was already in the works before he was free from his Non-Compete. I really hope it was adidas and not him for the sake of the brand's future. The 2018 Speedform/Spotlight has a statement model that will be $300+ and if they don't iron out some of the design stuff I saw, it will be a Tunit level failure and destroy the credibility of the non-gimmicky $220 model. For what is worth, the synthetic upper on the statement model is the best synthetic I have ever touched...I hope they keep that on the $220 model.

 

I liked it a lot..the fit was very good. They raised the toe box from the CF just enough that it doesn't pinch if you're someone that has to compromise between sizes because you're more of a 1/4 length vs. 1/2.

 

I would say it was comparable to the ACE 15.1 FG/AG in synthetic both in length and width with the ACE just edging it in overall fit conformity to my foot. To be fair though, the ACE 15.1 is probably my favorite fitting synthetic boots since the AZT I and II circa 2000-2004.