Mercurial Superfly

The first Superfly, and the moment the Mercurial split in two: the Vapor stayed the standard speed boot and the Superfly became the halo model above it. It weighed about 185g and introduced Flywire — ultra-thin cables laid across the upper in a criss-cross you could actually see, doing the job of a thick, heavy upper with almost no material. Under it sat a carbon-fibre chassis for a stiff, springy, lightweight base.

Nike wanted lockdown without weight. Flywire made the support system visible: instead of padding the boot to hold your foot, thin cables held it and everything else was stripped away, so the fastest boot going could get even lighter.

Worn by: Cristiano Ronaldo, whose United-era orange-and-silver launch pair fixed the first Superfly's image.

Sources: [1][2]

Kept the Flywire upper and added NikeSENSE to the traction plate — pressure-sensitive studs meant to react to the ground, extending for grip when you pushed and sitting back when you did not. It was the plate, not the upper, that carried the story this time.

Worn by: Clint Dempsey was the first player to wear the Superfly II, debuting it in March 2010; Cristiano Ronaldo's CR7 "Safari" edition ran on this generation.

Sources: [1][2]

Mostly a visual generation rather than a technical one — brighter colourways and a bolder Swoosh, on essentially the same Flywire upper and plate as the Superfly II. An honest record says so: not every generation is a breakthrough, and this one was a refresh.

Worn by: Cristiano Ronaldo, through the peak speed-boot rivalry — him in the Mercurial, Messi in the adidas F50.

Sources: [1][2]

The turning point. The Superfly IV was the first Mercurial built on a one-piece Flyknit upper — knitted in a single wrap instead of cut and stitched from panels — with Brio cables woven through it for lockdown, over a carbon-fibre plate. It also introduced the Dynamic Fit collar: a knitted cuff that rose over the ankle like a sock, and became the thing that told a Superfly apart from a Vapor for the next decade.

Knitting the upper let Nike shape support and stretch into different zones of one seamless piece, and the collar was a bet that a boot could feel like an extension of the leg. Both ideas defined the high-cut Superfly identity from here on.

Sources: [1][2]

Refined the Flyknit idea into a fuller sock-like fit and kept the high collar, and redesigned the soleplate around chevron-shaped studs placed for straight-line traction and acceleration. The Vapor of the same year (Vapor XI) stayed low-cut on a more traditional plate; the Superfly V was the high-collar, aggressive-traction version.

Worn by: Cristiano Ronaldo, by now inseparable from the Superfly — the boot had become part of his image.

Sources: [1][2]

Named "360" for the upper: a Flyknit wrap that went all the way around the foot with no separate soleplate seam on the sides, so the knitted upper and the chassis met as one continuous piece. Underneath sat a split soleplate — a chevron pattern up front for acceleration and a bladed pattern at the back for stopping and changing direction — with a NikeSkin coating over the knit to shrug off water.

Sources: [1][2][3]

A tuning pass rather than a reinvention: an upgraded chevron stud pattern on the outsole and a reworked Dynamic Fit collar for a more secure lock around the ankle, on the same 360 Flyknit direction as the generation before it.

Worn by: Kylian Mbappé's boot, and the one he got his first signature edition on: the Superfly 7 "Bondy Dreams" in December 2019, named for the Paris suburb he grew up in. The "Mbappé Rosa" followed in August 2020. He wore the collared Superfly rather than the low-cut Vapor 13 of the same generation.

Sources: [1][2][3]

Launched in February 2021 with the "Dragonfly" colourway and a new Vaporposite upper — a layered knit-and-mesh construction meant to keep a thin, direct touch while holding the foot in place in wet or dry conditions. The knit was stripped back to the minimum needed, shedding weight in the process.

Sources: [1][2]

Moved the speed story underfoot. The Superfly 9 put a Zoom Air unit into the plate — a pressurised air-and-fibre cushion that springs back as you push off — the first time a Mercurial used Air. It paired that with a SpeedCage for stability and an upgraded Vaporposite+ upper.

Worn by: Kylian Mbappé, whose repeated-acceleration game was the player story Nike told the Air Zoom plate through.

Sources: [1]

Refined the Air Zoom platform introduced on the 9 and lightened the build, with a new Gripknit upper — a coated knit engineered for grip on the ball in all conditions — over a lighter Flyknit construction.

Sources: [1]