Product Review #52 — PUMA King XL Limited Edition Has Arrived

The King XL FG Ruby is a 40th year anniver­sary spe­cial edi­tion boot, designed to com­mem­o­rate the iconic career of the PUMA King boot line.

Based on the career of Eusébio (the Black Pearl), one of football’s great­est play­ers, the edi­tion fea­tures the years “1968–2008″ below the King logo and comes in a red colour hav­ing two equally impor­tant ori­gins; it is the tra­di­tional gem colour for a 40th anniver­sary and is the pri­mary coun­try colour of Eusebio’s beloved Portugal.

The King is Born 

The idea for the King boot was born after Eusébio scor­ing nine goals at the 1966 World Cup, worked with Puma to develop a sig­na­ture foot­ball boot which debuted two years later. Over the years, the King became a leg­end and was worn by other leg­ends includ­ing Brazil’s Pele, Argentina’s Maradona and Dutch mae­stro Johan Cruyff.

From PUMA lit­er­a­ture, this newest addi­tion to the Puma King range includes clas­sic lines and tra­di­tional styling, but with updated mate­ri­als, enhanced fea­tures and new design details.  The King XL con­tains a light­weight TPU injected out­sole with fixed moulded studs, suit­able for use on firm and hard surfaces.

It also pro­vides inte­rior com­fort uti­liz­ing the PUMA Apto­Last design we took a look at dur­ing the

Serie A Talk — PUMA v1.08 FG Speed prod­uct review 

Apto­last fea­tures con­form to the nat­ural cur­va­tures of the foot, offer­ing an extreme all over snug fit.  The boot also has a full grain leather upper which pro­vides that traditional look.

I liked the tra­di­tonal look and feel of this boot, it tends to be a bit big­ger and heav­ier than sev­eral of the newer boots com­ing out this year but the all leather exte­rior cre­ates a great feel and the stud design pro­vides good foot­ing on a wide vari­ety of field con­di­tions. (dis­cov­ered that dur­ing testing) This is a lim­ited edi­tion boot so not too many to go around but if you aren’t into the ruby red colour the King XL does come in a black edition.

Finally, the King XL ships with sev­eral extras includ­ing an all black leatherette King boot bag con­tain­ing leather food, brush and pol­ish cloth as well as an anniver­sary ruby book­let with the com­plete story of the PUMA-Eusebio connection.

Euse­bio Snapshot

• he scored 727 goals in 715 games
• helped the Por­tuguese national team reach third place at the 1966 World Cup, being the top goalscorer of the tour­na­ment with nine goals 
• he won the Euro­pean Cup with Ben­fica, scor­ing two goals in the final against Real Madrid CF
• Euse­bio was awarded the “Bal­lon d’Or” (Golden Ball) as Euro­pean Foot­baller of the Year in 1965 
• awarded Euro­pean Golden Boot award in 1968, 1973 (42, 40 goals)
• was selected as the Golden Player of Por­tu­gal by the Por­tuguese Foot­ball Fed­er­a­tion as their most out­stand­ing player of the past 50 years 

Addi­tional pic­tures of PUMA King XL

 PUMA KingXL — Ruby 40th Anniver­sary edition

PUMA King XL Black / White model

Tagged as: Eusebio, Football Product Review, puma