2006 - BEST OF THE BEST SNEAKERS

Jeff Carvalho_Weekly Drop_Boston
Puma Pele NYC 1975

When you’re 10 years old growing up in a Portuguese family, basketball and baseball are not options. You either played soccer or you played soccer. If you didn't want to, you fucking watched soccer or listened to it on the radio. I can clearly recall my uncle holding a shortband radio to his ear listening to what can only be described as static with the voice of God buried deep in the fray... and that God was Football! I grew to play less and less, tending to other important issues such as drawing dirty comics and punk/hardcore. But my love for the game never died. In fact, it only grew with age. From sneaking into the Library at Northeastern and redirecting the satellite so I could watch games, to the present where I refuse to miss the European Cup, soccer is my thing. So when a sneaker is issued under the guise of a legend, I pay attention. Unlike the world of basketball, you simply don’t find many signature kicks made for players. With the exception of a few like Beckenbauer1 from the adidas camp, you have to go to Brazil and the legendary Pele! He was one of the handful of players who changed the game on an international scale.

Fans in the USA know 19752 as an important year in US soccer relations. It’s the year the NY Cosmos, were able to ‘convince’ Pele (who had retired three years earlier from Santos in Brazil), to come to the US. The Puma ‘Pele NYC 1975’ is a pure celebration of the legacy of this majestic player. Made with a solid gumsole, the shoe is wrapped with Puma’s classic suede and outlined with a beautifully stitched brown leather, giving it a very respectable crossover appeal. I personally have rocked it with a variety of looks, from the relaxed to the occasional buttondown needed to enter some of the social watering holes that usually won’t allow kicks in Boston. But it’s the details and subtleties that sell the shoe. For example, as you turn the tongue, you reveal Pele’s own signature embossed onto the side of the leather. It’s not shown outright but given as a bonus. Looking down into the footbed, we find the shoe’s name as well as ‘Obrigado Brasil’ throughout.

But what makes the Pele 1975 my favorite shoe of the year, is the build quality. In a day where we are surrounded with shoddy materials and factory builds, kicks get maybe four days wear before distressing, so it’s a damn pleasure to see a back to basics trainer that will continue to age well. The leather has softened with sheer grace giving it an incredibly clean wear-out, I mean I’ve put good miles on them, and though it’s definitely got a worn look, it seems to get better and better, much like good demin. And the shoe is as comfortable today as it was when I first got them back in the Winter. This cannot go unsaid. Big ups to Puma!

(1) Beckenbaur also played with the NY Cosmos during Pele’s final season in NY.
(2) Prior to Pele’s departure, the Brasil football federation banned all players from internationals in order to retain talent in their own club leagues.