Nike Football Boots

Want to know all the facts on Nike Football Boots? We've got details of the history, key players, and the full range of boots - right here!

Nike Mercurial Vapor football boots
The Mercurial Vapor line of Nike football boots will always have a special reverence among football fans who lived through the late 1990's era of football. Arguably the first ever football boot to be designed with a focus on being lightweight (and thus imbuing the player with a speed and agility advantage over their opponents) the Mercurial Vapor also dared to venture into the use of a synthetic upper to reduce weight, whilst simulating the properties of natural leather.
D©buted by World Cup winner and holder of infinite scoring records, Brazil's Ronaldo was the poster boy for the boots through their early existence. Ironically, the torch now seems to have been passed to a different Ronaldo - Cristiano of Portugal - to be the new poster-boy of the Mercurial Vapor Series.

Nike Total 90 Laser football boots

The first of the Nike Football Boots range to offer a direct opposition to the technology being used by the adidas Predator range of boots by claiming to augment a players abilities with features of the boot offering increased power and accuracy.
The use of rubber and silicon zones at specific areas of the boot are the means by which these are achieved - the theory being that increased friction when making contact with the ball will give a player greater control on where it goes. The Total 90 range of boots have grown a strong association with 'Power' players, like Wayne Rooney and Miroslav Klose and Michael Essien who are all about strength, high-energy performances and long-range strikes.
Nike CTR360 Maestri Football Boots
The newest entry to the Nike Football Boots silo is the CTR360 range of footwear. Designed for the precise play-maker, the midfield Maestro and the decisive defensive mid, the CTR360 range of football boots are the first in the world to offer a 'Pass-Pad' on the insole, designed to enhance passing and crossing, rather than shooting. Other features unique to the CTR360 are a selection of 'Pods' across the surface of the boot, specifically placed on areas of the foot used to control the ball.
These pods are soft and spongy enough to take the sting off any pass that comes your way, allowing you to bring the ball under your spell quickly to get play moving again. Players that favour the CTR360 include Cesc Fabregas, Carlos Tevez, Ashley Cole and Spanish World Cup Hero Andreas Iniesta, but players from Goalkeepers to Strikers have all been quick to latch onto the benefits of this top-quality boot.

DANGEROUS SPORT

Football

You knew this would be #1 before we even started. But you probably didn’t know just how much more dangerous football is than other sports. Sure, it was second in total injuries to basketball with 2,490,000. But there are so many fewer people playing football, which means the rate of injury is astronomically higher: 4.85%.
That’s right, football players are more than twice as likely to sustain injuries as a player in the next most dangerous sport. And despite all the hullabaloo in hockey about “head shots” this year, football is king of head injuries with 274,455. It’s also tops in shoulder (144,896), lower arm (88,266), lower trunk (98,565), and lower leg (88.234) injuries.
So play football at your own risk, folks. I’m going to stick to soccer. It’s not even on the list.

 Basketball

You know, basketball is so popular that we forget how painful it can be. Last year basketball won the overall category with a whopping 2,560,000 injuries reported. And they came in 3rd in the injury rate category with 1.85% of participants getting bruised and battered.
The majority of the injuries sustained were, obviously, ankle sprains. There were 258,348 of those, more than any other sport. Basketball also dominated finger and knee injuries, with 198,413 and 175,505 respectively. Oh, and of course the sport was tops in face and cheek injuries with 190,167. (Even the Basketball Player-in-Chief isn’t immune from face injuries.)

Cycling

After motorsports, cycling is probably the sport in which you’re most likely to get killed. Racing is dangerous. Mountain biking is dangerous. Just riding around block is dangerous. That’s why there were 2.49 million cycling injuries reported last year, the second highest total. And the injury rate was 1.29%—not staggering, but the 5th overall and just a half percentage point behind skateboarding at #2.

Lacrosse

Unfortunately there aren’t enough registered lacrosse players out there to know exactly what percentage of them can expect to sustain injuries. But we do know there were about 96,000 of them reported last year, 10th most among all sports. And if you’ve ever watched lacross, you know it’s a gritty game…and sometimes downright violent.

Skateboarding

Hardly shocking, is it? The whole point of skateboarding is to do stuff that’s dangerous until you master it. And while the official sanctioned competitions wear lots of protective gear, the kids thrashing on the street usually do not—which is why there were 676,000 boarding injuries reported last year, for 1.86% of the participants. That’s the second-highest injury rate of any sport.

Horseback Riding

Like lacrosse, we don’t have enough data on horseback riding participation to know what percentage of riders get injured. But since horses are kind of expensive and difficult to care for, we’re going to assume the vast majority of people don’t ride no horses. And that makes the 316,000 injuries reported last year pretty astounding. We’re talking 3x the number of injuries as in hockey, but there’s no way there are as many horseback riders.
So just say no to horses, kids. Your parents (and their checkbooks) will thank you.

FUTSAL

Futsal: Brazil creams France; Les Bleus outraged by ‘extra player’

RIO DE JANEIRO—Sacre bleu!

World No. 1 Brazil put the samba flavor back in futsal, dancing their way to a 6-2 victory over France at the highly controversial start of the best-of-41 series for the Fifa World Futsal Championship Tuesday night at the Club de Seis50 here.
Antonio set the tone for the Brazilian charge with a goal right in the first minute and a brilliant save sandwiched by two more strikes by Lorenzo in the 12th and 15th minutes to break the backs of the Les Bleus in the first game of the series.
“One down, 20 to go,” said Antonio, the Brazilian captain. “We wanted to get off to a good start and we got it.”

Completing the rout in what French newspapers have started to label as the “Scourge of Les Bleus” were Rhandinho (25th), Kato (33rd) and Antonio again (38th).
“We said at the start that they were going down and that’s exactly where they went,” said Kato.
So fluid were the Brazilians that the French were dazed even after the game and had a tough time fielding questions by reporters as to what happened to the defensive discipline that took them this far into the World Championships.
“Je ne sais pas (I don’t know),” said France skipper Zhem Mont Majeur. “We are a very good defensive team and tonight, it just didn’t show. But it’s the first game only. It’s a long way to go.”
“I keep telling my teammates, ‘vas-y!’ (go!) but obviously something was missing,” added the French captain. “We just have to regroup tout de suite (at once).”

Indeed, something was missing. Video replays later showed that Brazil played with seven players while France was just limited to six players.
“Mon dieu!,” blurted out French midfielder Cyril Bon Aventez. “That’s unfair, n’est-ce pas (isn’t it?)? We really were hurt by that extra man because they had a spare defender every time we had the ball on our side of the floor.”
Game 2 is Monday at the Le Club le650 beside the Champs Elysees.
Amid a boisterous Brazilian home crowd that played the samba music, the game started rather tentatively with both sides showing signs of pressure. Antonio broke the ice and drove the 60,000-strong audience crazy, but Brazil had to endure tense moments when France tied the game courtesy of a curling 12-yard blast by Mont Majeur.
France starting goalkeeper Catherine MCMLXIII made a series of key saves until two rushing goals by Lorenzo broke the French backs.
In a classic battle against the offensive-minded Brazilians and the defensively-brilliant French, offense won as the Les Bleus sorely missed the presence of central defender Andreaz Perez, who was serving out a one-game ban after getting red-carded in an exhibition match in La Union.
The French made Dianne Ville Fuertez handle the defensive chores and she had her hands full against Brazilian MVP midfielder Teresa, who let her teammates take charge in scoring and concentrated on setting up plays for her team.

And even when Catherine was substituted in the middle of the match by lanky keeper Jean Lestierre de Masigagne, the French fell prey to continuous offensive pressure by Kato and Rhandinho, and a Brazilian line that obviously had a spare kicker to confuse the French defense.
With the extra player, Brazil managed to pull off constant double teams on the defensive end with right back Alexa and left back Padiernos constantly harassing Bon Aventez, who could not get any of her trademark crosses going to the French forwards.
Alexa and Padiernos also did their share in cutting through the French passing lanes and disrupting attempts by France to move the ball forward.
About the only thing that spoiled a perfect samba night for Brazil was the fact that they were one-up in manpower.

“Zut alors (darn it), there were obviously moments when we wished the officials would pull out red cards because of the manpower violation,” said enraged striker Francois Ochoa, a Frenchman of Cebuano descent who capped scoring with a rushing goal in extra time. “Piro unsa-on man nato bai. Diri man mi sa Brazil ga-duwa. Ang ako lang, lig-on na gani kayo sila, naa pa gyud sila’y subra na tao. Pastilan gi atay, alkansi ayo mi oi.”
Actually, France tried to protest at the start of the game, but a Brazilian mob threatened to throw broken beer bottles that were like batutas with knives to the court.
“Anyway, we still had our chances but we blew them. We had a mauvais quart d’heure (uncomfortable moment) early in the first half and our defense gave up too many goals to their overloaded offense so, you know, c’est la vie,” said Ville Fuertez.
Perez is expected to beef up the defense for France in Game 2, while Rissa Katrina, who missed Game 1 with a foot injury, is still doubtful for next week.           AFP
More photos to be posted here in time… In the meantime, drop by here.

THE BEST PLACE MALAYSIA

Sepilok Orang Utan Sanctuary

Borneo, along with Sumatra, are the only place where orang utans are found in the wild

Plight of the Urang Utan

Orang utans are indigenous to Borneo and Indonesia’s Sumatra. Their exact population is difficult to determine, but evidence gathered through studies of orang utan nests suggests that there were fewer than 30,000 of them left in the wild. And that was 10 years ago.

Today there could be as few as 15,000 left, the majority of which lives in Borneo.

This drastic reduction is a result of human activity that affects their natural habit, the rainforest.

In the last 20 years an estimated 80% cent of suitable orang utan habitat has disappeared, and only around 2% of what remains is legally protected.

Sepilok Orang Utan Sanctuary – Wildlife Rehabilitation

In 1962 Barbara Harrison, with the backing WWF, visited Sabah and reported that the orang utan was an endangered species and campaigned for its protection.

The following year orang utans became officially protected under the Fauna Conservation Ordinance, which, among other things, prohibits hunting, trading or keeping them as pets.

She then began to rescue young orang utans being kept locally as pets, and the idea grew of rehabilitating these animals to fend for themselves so that they might re-adapt to life in the wild.

In 1964 43km² of jungle rainforest was set aside and the Sepilok Rehabilitation centre was established to rehabilitate orang utans for reintegration into the wild.

Today around 80 orang utans are living free in the reserve and there are about 25 juveniles and babies living in the nurseries at the center’s buildings.

Sepilok Orang Utan Sanctuary or Zoo?

We have visited and been supporters of the centre for a number of years during which time we have heard conflicting opinions from people that have visited; some likening it to a circus or zoo, saying that it is too touristy.

We couldn’t disagree more.

If you’re going there expecting to see wild orang utans swinging from trees, forget it. Those that have been living in the reserve for a long time don’t come to the platform for feeding, they are not seen by the tourists, they have been rehabilitated.

What you see are those that are in the last stage of rehabilitation. They have been released but are either a little lazy or still a bit timid to find their own food, so they return to platform for an easy snack.

The food supplied by the centre is purposefully designed to be monotonous and boring so as to encourage the apes to start to forage for themselves.

Most animals eventually achieve total independence and become integrated into Sepilok’s wild orang utan population. To avoid overcrowding the forest, some are relocated to Tabin Wildlife Reserve, an area of virgin rainforest twice the size of Singapore.

In our opinion the centre, with the help of the Sepilok Orangutan Appeal UK, carries out great work for the conservation and preservation of the orang utan population in Malaysian Borneo, and they provide vital education for both local people and foreign visitors.

It is very rare and difficult to see these beautiful animals in the wild as they live in dense jungle and their numbers are so few. At Sepilok you are guaranteed to see the apes.

By understanding the work that is being done and why it’s done, you won’t be disappointed with your visit.

Putting the Wild in Wildlife

Although orang utans are the stars at Sepilok Orang Utan Sanctuary, the other wildlife is not to be sneered at. Pig tail and long tail macaques often join the orang utans and visitors during feeding times hoping for an easy meal.

If provoked, the macaques can get quite aggressive towards each other and visitors, but they are quite fascinating to watch as they groom and play together.

There are also various walks within the reserve taking you from tropical highland rainforest to lowland mangrove swamps offering the opportunity to see a multitude of wildlife.

Feeding times at the centre are at 10:00 and 15:00 daily. A DVD presentation is shown 08:30, 11:00, 12:00, 14:10 and 15:30 daily. It outlines the work being carried out there.

Getting there

Situated on the east coast of Sabah, 23km from Sandakan, the centre is easily reached. Frequent daily flights or buses and air-conditioned coaches go to Sandakan from Kota Kinabalu and Tawau.

A flight takes about 40 mins, whilst a bus/coach takes about 6 hours. If you do go by bus ask to be dropped off at Jalan Sepilok, which is a 2.5km walk from the centre.

From Sandakan you can join the Sepilok public bus, Batu 14, from Sandakan bus station near the central market or get a taxi.

If you are getting a taxi from the airport remember to purchase a taxi coupon before you depart.

Another option is to hire a car from KK. The roads are pretty good and a four wheel drive is not necessary to reach Sepilok.

Do Like The Orang Utans Do And Hang Around At The Sepilok Resort

A stay at one of the Sepilok Resorts is a must if you are venturing any where close to the rehabilitation centre.

If you don’t have enough time to stay the night, at least stay for lunch and have a wander round the beautiful landscaped jungle gardens.

Home to a rich variety of bird and wildlife, it’s within an easy 5 minute walk from the rehabilitation centre.

Our chosen resorts offer a perfect residence for those wishing to make a trip to the centre more of an experience.

Swing on over to our Wildlife Adventure Program page for packages we have put together that incorporates Sepilok Orang Utan Sanctuary and other wildlife attractions such as Kinabatangan River, Gomontong Caves and Turtle Island.