First, let me start off by giving you my background. I have been playing soccer for 30+ years at multiple levels including top end amateur leagues. I play goalie, so the quality of my cleats, while important, is not always at the top of my list when I am budgeting for equipment. I do not normally purchase the least expensive options, but I have always been hesitant to pull the trigger on the top end pro quality cleats. Also, since I typically play goalie, I typically lean towards less flashy cleats, usually the most color that I have on cleats is the accent to the black leather.
I have always been a fan of Nike's soccer cleats, and have worn them all the way back to the Total 90 days (early 2000s). The last two pairs of cleats I have had are the Phantom GT Pro and the Tiempo Legend Pro, and I loved both of them. I was presented with the opportunity to get the Phantom GT2 Dynamic Fit, and I must say, they are worth the price of admission.
Immediately upon opening the box, you are instantly hit with the fact that these are not your normal cleat. The design and the colors, are immediately noticeable and when you pick them up, you can feel the quality of the materials and workmanship, as well as how light each cleat is.
The highlighter yellow and red are definitely eye catching, and contrast really well with the white upper. These cleats will certainly be noticed when you step on the field, so you better make sure that your play is up to par.
The texture on the cleats, which resembles what I would think shark skin looks like under a microscope, really helps improve your control of the ball since it provides a friction point between your foot and the ball, allowing you to trap and pass the ball with improved touch.
Another thing that I also liked about the shoe is the ribs on the back of the heel cup which help keep your heel/achilles in place in the center of the back end of the shoe. This helped me to limit blisters while breaking in, since the shoe did not rub my heel the way other shoes do.
The main reason that I could not give this shoe top marks is that they do run small. I have a wider than normal foot, and I normally wear an 11.5 in the Tiempo family, and I wore a 12 in the pair of Phantom GT Pro's that I had prior to these shoes. I went ahead and ordered a size 12 in these since I thought they would be most similar to the Phantom Pro's.
Due to the design of the Dynamic Fit, these definitely are more snug than the mid-level Phantom right out of the box, and they also took a bit longer to break in than some of the other cleats that I have had in the past. If I could start over again, I would have worked them by more by hand (bending, twisting, flexing) to help loosen them more.
The type of sock you wear with these also plays a big factor in the comfort of these cleats, as thicker socks definitely make the fit more snug and limited my foot's ability to flex. When I wore thinner socks with these, they were more comfortable and I felt like my touch was more consistent as it was almost as if I wasn't wearing a shoe at all.
Ultimately, long term wear (at least a season) of these cleats will determine my final grade of these as I need to see how they hold up to practice and games on both turf and grass fields.
