The day has come again when a single ball can touch the hearts of 3.5 billion football fans around the world.

Qatar lost the first game, Argentina was surprised, Japan reversed Germany, Spain swept Costa Rica 7-0. In front of the long-silent late-night TV set, incredible sighs, cheers and shouts broke out, and people once again felt the blood they had not seen for a long time in this sport.

The business world is also boiling. International brands carve up the huge traffic of the World Cup by naming, sponsorship, on-site advertising and so on. At the same time, football from Yiwu and Jinjiang in China has poured into Qatar and even the whole world.Some people joke that China has participated in all aspects of the World Cup except Chinese football. In fact, Chinese sports brands are also absent from this world event.

The exposure of sports brands directly reflects the pattern of the world football industry: among the top 32 of the World Cup.$Nike (NKE.US)$、$ADIDAS AG (ADDYY.US)$, Puma sponsored 81 per cent of the teams, while New Balance, Hummel, Kappa, Majid, Marathon and One All Sports sponsored the remaining six.

Compared with the high profile of the Winter Olympic Games at the beginning of the year, Chinese sports brands have not even mentioned football on their official WeChat and official blog recently. In the two professional fields of basketball and running, the gap between domestic sports brands and international first-tier brands is gradually narrowing. But in the field of football, there is still a gap visible to the naked eye.

Football shoes are the most difficult and core basic equipment in the football industry. In the domestic football shoes market, Nike Inc, Adidas and Puma three traditional giants occupy the market, followed by Japanese brand Mazinon, Arthur, Concave and other brands appear sporadically.What is left for Chinese brands is a market whose needs have not been completely resolved by international brands, but with an ambiguous attitude.

"to tell you the truth, I hope that domestic football shoes can be done more seriously, closer to the public, and make a football shoes that are really suitable for most enthusiasts. Bilibili Inc. UP main No. 10 football test said to the tiger from the bottom of his heart.

What is Macy Ronaldo wearing?

In the football world, binding with superstars can not only increase brand exposure, but also gain experience feedback from first-class players and help brands improve their sneaker technology.Football enthusiast Suzhou Muller told Tiger: "domestic brands have good ability in raw materials and industrial chain, but in star data, we need more investment in order to have better development." "

Nike Inc, Adidas and Puma respectively signed three football stars Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi and Neymar. At this World Cup, brands have designed their own boots for each of them.

Cristiano Ronaldo's boots are Nike Inc Air Zoom Mercurial Superfly 9 CR7, which are equipped with Zoom Air air cushions for football, and the uppers are made of Flyknit flying weaving material.

Zoom Air is an ultra-thin and ultra-light air cushion technology invented by Nike Inc. Its structure is a flat air cushion, with nylon fiber supporting material fixed at the upper and lower ends in the middle. In shock absorption, the tension increased by the elongation of the fiber itself can be used to prevent the force-bearing part from continuing to collapse. Then, with the increased tension, the fiber is forced to pull back to the original length, squeezing the air, so that the air pressure in the original part of the force increases and springs back. Therefore, zoom air can provide excellent shock absorber capacity on the ultra-thin thickness of 8mm.

Flyknit is also a breakthrough technological innovation. The essence of this technology is to make a complete elastic cloth from a single material to form an integrated upper, rather than using multiple pieces of material to cut multiple times to act as tongues, uppers, heels and other parts. As a result, the first Flyknit Racer,9 shoe with Flyknit technology weighs just 160g.

Nike Inc reshaped his production line for this. Designer Rob Williams, Senior Design Director of Nike Inc running shoes, once said: "The main difference in the manufacturing method is that we can write the original design into the program and let the machine use the wire car to produce the shoe shape by reading and writing the information on the program.This is very different from the traditional handmade shoes, which need to be made according to the sample drawings provided by the designer. "

This is Messi's last World Cup, and Adidas has prepared a speed shoe Adidas X Speedportal Leyenda.1 for him. "the core feature of this pair of shoes is that it adds a complete carbon plate to the sole to strengthen the sole strength. Suzhou Muller spoke eloquently. According to the Adidas official, the carbon plate uses Speedframe outsole technology, using revolutionary carbon fiber inserts, combined with ultra-lightweight structure, to achieve more efficient power transmission during acceleration and sprint. "When accelerating, it will give you a stronger feedback rebound and faster acceleration. And Messi himself made a breakthrough very fast.」

Neymar's personal boots are Puma future Z 1.4 Dream Chaser. "Neymar has a softer style and is good at keeping the ball. "Suzhou Muller said,"In general, the material of socks will not be used on the instep. But about half of Neymar's shoes are made of soft socks, including the instep. The advantage is that the instep is soft and tactile, while the disadvantage is that the force is soft when shooting. But it fits the style of Neymar.」

Where are the domestic products?

Domestic football shoes are not without highlights.

The first person to enter the game is$LI NING (02331.HK)$. In the 2002 World Cup in Japan and South Korea, Chinese football made it into the top 32. National enthusiasm for football is unprecedented, Li Ning Co. Ltd. waited for the opportunity to seize the blank of domestic football equipment.

However, it is not easy to get involved in new categories, and "efficiency" has become a stumbling block that hinders Li Ning Co. Ltd. from taking advantage of the situation in the first place. Li Ning Co. Ltd. went from the product planning case to the designer to study how to make football shoes, to find raw materials, to develop uppers and soles, to find spokesmen, and to hold an order meeting. finally, the product was released, which took nearly two years. Zhihu Inc. respondent Boy Bad, who has been working in the retail industry for nearly a decade, said,When Li Ning Co. Ltd. wanted to make a difference in the field of football, football gradually began to fall into the whirlpool of match-fixing and black whistle, the tuyere was no longer, the number of people watching and playing football gradually decreased, and even Adi's football shoes could not be sold, not to mention Li Ning Co. Ltd.. Finally, I had to give up.」

Li Ning Co. Ltd. also suffered a big loss in terms of pricing strategy. At that time, Li Ning Co. Ltd. spent a lot of money, not only signing the popular international Li tie, who had just left Everton. What's more, we invited Max Zago, the designer of "Mercury" of Nike Inc's first year Mercurial, to design the "Iron" series named after Li tie. The configuration of the "Iron" series also shows Li Ning Co. Ltd. 's intention: full-body kangaroo skin, highly recognizable inverted tongue, more suitable for Asian wide shoe last.

If we say that the luxury configuration of the "Iron" series makes fans boiling, its pricing of up to 1080 yuan has undoubtedly poured cold water on the market. "applause is not popular" has become the biggest regret of the "Iron" series. Later, Li Ning Co. Ltd. disposed of the inventory by relying on a substantial discount. Since then, the "heartbroken" Li Ning Co. Ltd. gave up the design and production of mainstream sneakers and once bid farewell to the football market for more than a decade.

The next mainstream sports brand to enter the game is$ANTA SPORTS (02020.HK)$At that time, a whole decade had passed since the "Iron" series was a flash in the pan.

In April 2015, Anta CEO Ding Shizhong said proudly at the shareholders' meeting to enter the football industry: "as China's largest sporting goods company, football, we will not stand idly by." At the end of the year, Anta signed Zheng Zhi, then captain of the national football team and Asian footballer of the year, to formally enter the football market by issuing a 'just play' football strategy at Guangdong Evergrande Football School.

Perhaps learned the lesson of Li Ning Co. Ltd. football shoes high-end positioning failure, Anta launched the "lion" series of football shoes, positioning the public, the price is very close to the people: entry-level broken nailed football shoes "lion" A11 promotion price is only 59 yuan, the mid-end model "lion" MG promotion price is only 239 yuan.

To its credit, the male Lion was designed by young Chinese designers and worked very hard on localization. "Nike Adi's sneaker last design is more inclined to European and American athletes, we wear more or less will encounter shoes on the thin side, toe low and other problems."the 10th football test said. The "male Lion" series, aiming at the foot shape of the Chinese people, widens the front palm of the shoe last slightly.

Anta has strong confidence in this newspaper. At that time, Zheng Jie, president and executive director of Anta Company, said: "Anta has the confidence to make football the core category of Anta in the future, and strives to become the first in the domestic football market share in the next three to five years. At that time, the football business will reach more than 8% of Anta's overall revenue. However, the "male Lion" series did not get the expected hot market feedback. The later story is that Anta cut off the football product line and has been dormant to this day.

$XTEP INT'L (01368.HK)$Just as ready to move. In 2016, Xtep released the "Blade Generation" top football shoes, which were endorsed by retired superstar Andriy Shevchenko and helped design them. But the shoes are less loud and are rarely mentioned in fans and practitioners who communicate with Tiger, as well as in online posts discussing domestically made football shoes.

In 2016, Li Ning Co. Ltd. officially established the Football Department, and in 2017, Li Ning Co. Ltd. held a football product ordering meeting and re-signed a contract with Li tie, who was already a Chinese football assistant at that time, and announced his return to the domestic football market in a high profile. Later, Li Ning Co. Ltd. reengraved the "Iron" series, and only provided two versions of AG and TF outsole, sinking the focus of the product to a wider range of human grass boots.

"Research on the current management situation, problems and development countermeasures of domestic football sports shoes" points out that the current football fields in China are mainly medium and low quality artificial lawns, which are suitable for TF and AG football shoes. At present, due to the poor sales of AG shoes in the Chinese market, and China is the main consumer of AG outsole football shoes, such as Adidas and Nike Inc gradually reduce their attention to the Chinese market.If domestic brands take the opportunity to launch high-quality TF and AG outsole football shoes, it will increase their market share.

The domestic football industry is warming up. This year, Li Ning Co. Ltd. released the second generation of Iron. Meanwhile, in August this year, a netizen on social media who claimed to be an Anta employee said: "Anta now wants to get the football back." My colleague has almost completed the product matrix design of the new football shoes. "

Domestic football shoes are making a comeback, will there be new surprises?

How long will it take?

Yesterday (November 26), the situation of the World Cup was dull, but the domestic football circle was somewhat lively because of a piece of news: according to the website of the Hubei Provincial Commission for discipline Inspection Supervision Commission on November 26, Li tie, the former head coach of the Chinese national men's football team, was suspected of serious violations of the law. He is currently under investigation by the discipline Inspection and Supervision team of the Central Commission for discipline Inspection and State Supervision Commission of the State Administration of Sports and the Hubei Provincial Supervision Commission.

At present, Li Ning Co. Ltd. has deleted all advertising cooperation with Li tie, and removed the iron series 2 generation and iron series SE youth model developed around Li tie. Hu sniff learned that some merchants had received a notice:

Group announcement

Notify ⚠️ urgently.

1 all iron series products are removed from the shelves. Pay attention to all

All Li Ning Co. Ltd. 's iron-containing propaganda was removed (iron-bearing). Containing iron words)

three. All iron series that need to be returned today can not be rejected directly. Consult the headquarters first.

Ask all stores to execute immediately.

Domestic football scandals occur frequently, and the blow to the football industry is fatal. This not only dampens people's enthusiasm for football and reduces potential spending power, but also increases the risk of domestic sports brands signing domestic players, which is disadvantageous to access to Asian player data and improve technological research and development.

「Several pairs of domestic shoes I tried before did pay attention to the shoe last, toe and so on, but ignored the indicators such as heel locking, wrapping feeling and support.The No. 10 football test said that it is not that domestic brands are not up to the corresponding high standards in terms of technical ability, but that they have not noticed or are not comprehensive enough.

The factors to be considered in the design of football shoes involve all aspects. "to play football, feet or shoes need to be in direct contact with the ball, and the field is also a very special 'land turf'. Shoes have more influence on players than basketball.It is conceivable that the performance gap caused by the difference between manufacturing and design technology will continue to be magnified.Zhihu Inc. replied that the main Maple said.

The uncle, who loves playing football, also told Hu sniff that it doesn't matter to buy a larger size of basketball shoes, and football shoes must fully fit the shape of the foot to ensure wrapping. "if there is a slight inappropriateness, you will find that your feet are worn out or injured after half of the actual battle. "

A retail analyst told Hu that the reason why domestic brands do not invest heavily in the R & D and design of football shoes is because the market is small and the performance-to-price ratio is low. Compared with the widespread use of basketball shoes and running shoes in daily scenes, football shoes are no longer useful when they are separated from the football field. "In fact, even in the physical stores of international sports brands, the figure of football shoes is extremely rare.」

The football-loving uncle described to Tiger the current situation of buying football shoes in Beijing: football shoes are generally not available in ordinary sports brand stores. Only in the brand's OUTLETS stores, there will be some low-end shoes. If you want to try more brands of more shoes and find something suitable for you, you need to go to small plums, YOYO and other special football equipment stores. Search for "football equipment" on Amap and you can see that there are only four such stores in Beijing.

The World clothing and Footwear Network has pointed out that most of the products of domestic sports brands are sold by dealers, and there are few direct stores, and football shoes are not as popular as other goods, and if they are not competitive, dealers will not buy them. this is also the reason why it is difficult to see football shoes in domestic sporting goods stores.

"performance-to-price ratio" is the main concept of domestic football shoes. "Research on the current situation, problems and development countermeasures of China's domestic football sports shoes" points out that there is a small gap between domestic and foreign sports brands in terms of comfort, inclusiveness, ground grip, material science and technology, etc. it is beneficial for domestic football shoes to seize market share.

This also limits their "pricing freedom" to some extent. In a group of football enthusiasts, a fan took a screenshot of the Spark series of football shoes launched by Anta this year, with a discount price of 649 yuan, which sparked a heated discussion among friends, saying it was not worth it. A football enthusiast told Hu that although wearing European and American shoes, the shoe last is too narrow and uncomfortable, but the price of more than 600 yuan will directly choose Nike Inc and Adidas.

In many tests of domestic football shoes on social media, bloggers often go the same way:I sincerely hope that domestic football shoes will become stronger and stronger.

It is not known when Messi will be able to wear Chinese sneakers.What Chinese fans really care about is when we will be able to put on a pair of domestic football shoes of high quality and good price.