Kylian Mbappé Is On: A New Football Chapter Begins
Some football boot partnerships just fit. Cristiano Ronaldo and the Mercurial. Messi and the F50. Beckham and Predator.
For close to two decades, Kylian Mbappé and Nike felt like another one of those combinations. He first joined Nike as a nine-year-old in 2006. By the time the rest of the football world caught up with what was happening in Bondy, the Swoosh was already there. It stayed there through Monaco, Paris Saint-Germain, a World Cup win, a World Cup Final hat-trick, the move to Real Madrid and a collection of Mercurials that increasingly became as much a part of the Mbappé story as the shirts he was wearing.
And now, suddenly, it isn't. Kylian Mbappé is On.
The end of a brilliant Nike chapter
There is a temptation whenever a major athlete changes brands to immediately declare a winner and a loser. This one deserves a little more respect than that, because Nike and Mbappé built something pretty special together.
From Bondy Dreams, which took the story right back to where everything started, to Rosa, Roots, the World Cup releases, Cheat Code for his arrival in Madrid and the recent Golden Boot edition, Nike allowed Mbappé's Mercurial line to become genuinely personal. Not just another colourway with a player's initials stuck on the heel.
There were references to home, childhood, music, basketball, French culture and the players and boots Mbappé grew up admiring. As his career became bigger, the archive grew with him. We've been lucky enough at Ultra Football to play our own small part in that journey too, launching and telling the stories behind many of those releases over the years.
If you want to go back through them, have a read of our Complete Nike Mercurial Kylian Mbappé Signature Edition Timeline. From Bondy to Madrid, it is quite a collection already.
Nike's own response to the change probably sums the relationship up best. The brand said it was proud of what the pair achieved together, on and off the pitch, and wished Mbappé well for what comes next.
That feels about right. It was a great run. But football moves quickly, and so does Mbappé.
So, what exactly is On doing in football?
This is where things become really interesting. Mbappé hasn't simply moved from Nike to another established football boot brand. On has entered football with him.
The Swiss company has put Mbappé at the centre of the project alongside Thierry Henry and Barcelona and Switzerland midfielder Sydney Schertenleib. Rather than simply asking the trio to wear the finished product, On says their first-hand experience will be used to challenge, improve and refine what comes next.
That distinction matters. Mbappé isn't arriving to become the latest player wearing an existing boot silo. He's arriving while the football identity itself is still being created.
On calls it co-creating the future of football.
We don't yet know exactly what the finished On football boot will look like or feel like when it eventually reaches players. But we do know what they're chasing: something that brings the player closer to the ball and closer to the game.
And that might be the most exciting part.
A boot built differently?
On has made its name by being prepared to make performance footwear look, feel and sometimes even be manufactured differently. If you've seen the footage coming out of the On Labs in Zurich, you probably noticed the machine spraying what looks almost like thread directly onto a shoe.
That is LightSpray. The technology has already been used within On's running footwear, creating an upper using a continuous sprayed filament rather than many of the more traditional stages of footwear manufacturing. Now On is bringing that thinking to football, with the brand specifically talking about precision-engineering a boot with a barefoot feel for both the women's and men's game.
There are plenty of questions still to answer. A running shoe and a football boot are very different things. A football upper needs to deal with touch, striking, changes of direction, lockdown, studs, pressure from other players and everything else that happens during 90 minutes on a pitch.
But that's also why this is worth watching. Football boots have changed enormously over the years, yet the market still tends to revolve around familiar ideas. Knitted uppers. Synthetic skins. Grip treatments. Lightweight speed boots. Different combinations of the same basic ingredients.
On is arriving without decades of football product history telling it what a boot is supposed to be. Instead, it has its own technology, some very serious football brains and the opportunity to build something from a relatively blank sheet of paper.
Sometimes that is a disadvantage. Sometimes it is exactly where something new begins.
Mbappé is a pretty serious starting point
And then there is the person they've chosen to build around. There aren't many footballers capable of giving a completely new football project instant credibility at the highest level. Mbappé is one of them.
He is also a particularly interesting athlete to choose if you're developing something based around weight, movement, feel and speed. Mercurial suited him because it has always been football's great speed boot. For years, player and product almost became shorthand for each other. Now he'll be helping create the thing that comes next.
Thierry Henry's involvement makes it even more intriguing. Here you have two generations of French football royalty alongside one of the brightest young names in the women's game, feeding directly into a brand that is talking less about simply launching another football boot and more about rebuilding that relationship between player, ball and product.
Mbappé. Henry. Schertenleib. LightSpray. A new brand entering football properly for the first time.You can understand why we're paying attention.
More competition is good for football
It is also worth remembering what happens when another serious player enters the market. Everyone has to get better.
Nike remains an enormous part of football and one of the most important brands in the history of the football boot. adidas continues to push Predator and F50 into new territory. PUMA has built serious momentum. New Balance, Mizuno and others bring their own ideas, while newer entrants have already shown there is room for disruption.
Now On wants a seat at the table, and not quietly either. Entering football with Kylian Mbappé and Thierry Henry is basically kicking the door open on your first day.
Whether the eventual product lives up to the entrance is the fascinating bit. Because ultimately, football players don't care how impressive the laboratory looks if the boot doesn't feel right when the whistle blows. That's the test.
And yes, we're already watching closely
For us at Ultra Football, this is exactly the sort of moment that makes the football boot world fun. We've spent years launching Mbappé Mercurials. We have watched that signature collection grow release by release and been able to put some of those boots into the hands, and onto the feet, of Australian footballers.
We're proud of that chapter. Now there is another one beginning, and we're already working behind the scenes on what the future of On Football at Ultra Football could look like.
There is plenty still to come before these boots properly arrive, and plenty we don't know yet. That's fine. Sometimes the best part is watching the story develop before everyone knows how it ends.
On's own message is Dream On.
We'll add one of our own: stay tuned to Ultra Football across our socials.
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