Without really knowing why, the laceless model disappeared from the COPA range when the second generation of the COPA Pure was launched in 2023. After a year and a half of blockade, the COPA found an upper without laces, which also confirms the return to favor of these versions among professional players.
adidas, the laceless specialist
Since 2016 and the launch of the ACE 16+ PURECONTROL, adidas has positioned itself as the essential leader in laceless football shoes. Certainly, purists and specialists will put the church back in the center of the village by asserting that it was indeed the Italian Lotto who unveiled the first pair of crampons without laces in 2006 with the Zhero Gravity, but it is indeed adidas who democratized this in the mid-2010s.
Since then, no matter which adidas model is launched, the brand with the three stripes has necessarily included a laceless version on the Elite range but also a variation on the pair at €100. Enough to offer the general public the possibility of testing this innovative technology, which has become an adidas trademark and on which Nike and PUMA ultimately never positioned themselves. Only PUMA has developed foot support technology that offers the possibility of playing with or without laces, but players playing without laces remain very largely associated with the feline brand.
Conversely, the trend is only changing when it comes to adidas. Based on the data from our infographics of football boots worn in Ligue 1, we can indeed see that the use of crampons without laces is clearly evolving. Whether in 2022/23 or during the 2023/24 season, 35% of Ligue 1 players played with a version without laces, while they are 51% for the 2024/25 season. One in two adidas players therefore play with a laceless model. A notable change of outlook on these different versions, which was necessarily another argument for the return to favor of a COPA Pure III without laces.
Clearly behind the two other silos which are the Predator and the F50 – since worn on average by 8% of adidas players in Ligue 1, for example – the COPA will thus offer a little more possibilities to the different players thanks to the feedback of this laceless version. Nicolò Zaniolo, Atalanta Bergamo player, should be one of the first players to use this model, he who was a regular at COPA with laces.
