Football is faster than ever. Games are quicker, spaces tighter, and decisions made in split-seconds. As the tempo of the sport keeps rising, boot designers are under pressure to not just keep up – but stay ahead.

For New Balance, that challenge was met head-on with the creation of the Furon v8: a boot built not just for explosive pace, but for total control in the chaos.

Where most brands obsess over acceleration, NB flipped the script – designing a silhouette that prioritises deceleration as much as speed. It’s a shift grounded in athlete insight and lab data, with feedback coming directly from the brand’s elite partners like Ebere Eze, Bukayo Saka, Jeremie Frimpong and Michelle Cooper.

But this now goes beyond the pitch. With ‘Boots Only Summer’ in full swing – and Rosalía turning heads in a pair of New Balance 442 V2s on the streets of New York – it raises the question of how performance-first products might evolve as football’s influence on fashion continues to grow.

In this debut edition of ‘Built Different’, VERSUS links up with Ian Black  – Lead Designer on the Furon v8 – to go inside the process. From data and prototypes to cultural crossovers, this is how New Balance built a boot that’s made for this moment.

New Balance has had tonnes of success signing some of the most exciting players in the game in recent years, talents like Ebere Eze. Why is the brand appealing to that type of player?

At New Balance Football, we look for player partnerships that go beyond performance—seeking individuals who are passionate about innovation, product feedback, and growing the game at every level.

Eze is a perfect fit. On the pitch, he’s a creative force—confident, skilful, and a natural playmaker—perfectly embodying the spirit of the Furon silhouette. Off the pitch, his values align with ours, and we’re proud to partner with him on a shared vision for impact.

His Eze Foundation, focused on providing career opportunities and inspiring experiences for schoolchildren in London, reflects our commitment to community, inclusivity, and creating lasting change through the lens of football.

We’ve seen a lot of sportswear brands turn back to the archive recently. What role do you think nostalgia has to play in the football performance space?

We often depict ourselves as a brand with heritage versus a heritage brand. Not many people know but New Balance has been in football for many years between the mid 80s and the early 2000s. There are some models in our line that will pull more inspiration from this archive, but for Furon specifically, we are looking at more progressive and modern aesthetics. We want the generation of today to be able to relate to what we craft and create for them, whether its performance, style, or the intersection of sport and culture.

We’re also seeing more boots or ‘astros’ be reinvented as street style shoes. Do you imagine NB boots or the Furon ever being seen in that lens?

Our 442 Indoor Lifestyle model lends itself to this crossover. It fundamentally has a blend of classic craftsmanship and modern football performance, so we have explored its potential away from its familiar surroundings. Experimenting with suedes, gum soles, lifestyle colours, and category crossover has allowed the team to tap into deep rooted football culture and ways it influences the fashion space, especially as brands seek to adopt an established unisex appeal. We’re eager to see how the consumer adopts and appropriates the model, especially given the success of cross category collaborations in the past with New Balance staples such as Numeric from a skate perspective.

What is the next big innovation in football boots? Whats the “thing” that NB are working towards next?

As a collective, we’re always looking at ways to improve player performance and provide a distinct advantage when wearing our boots, using player and lab research to uncover insights and create solutions that respond and evolve with the game and the ways it is forever evolving. Surface conditions, rule changes, and heightened focus on gameplay speed and athlete performance are all aspects of the game that we are studying and working to solve through an innovative lens. Stay tuned!

‍‍The New Balance Furon v8 'Energy Rush' is available now from New Balance.

VERSUS: This is the 8th edition of the Furon. What makes this the best one yet?

Ian Black, New Balance: It’s certainly a boot that we are proud of, but the process behind the design is what sets it apart from models of the past. 

‍Co-authoring insights with our elite athletes, focused data capture through the Sports Research Lab in Boston, and numerous iterations and prototypes, points towards a product that we feel is crafted for speed to the highest calibre across all levels of the game.

The Furon v8 has been constructed with insights from athletes like Saka and Eze. How important is there feedback in the design process?

Athlete feedback is central to our product creation process. With our Global Football team based at our EMEA headquarters, we benefit from proximity to key players like Bukayo, Ebere, and Jeremie Frimpong—all of whom are deeply involved in providing input and testing early prototypes.

It was through conversations with these elite athletes that we uncovered the critical role agility plays in tight spaces. This insight sparked an in-depth study on deceleration, which ultimately led to the development of the Speed Ctrl Stud featured on the new Furon v8. While most of the market continues to focus solely on acceleration in the context of speed boots, our team took a more holistic approach—driven by data and inspired by athlete input.

Partnering with a data capture agency, we discovered that in elite match play, attacking players average 46 acceleration movements and 73 deceleration movements over 90 minutes. This insight shaped a traction pattern designed specifically to enhance directional braking, giving players more control and confidence across all facets of the game.

The first Furon launched 10 years ago. How much has football changed since that initial launch event, and how has it altered your process?

We’ve always grounded our design process in insights from athletes—whether directly or through lab testing—long before putting pencil to paper. You can frame our approach around two key themes. First, the game is getting faster, and the data backs that up. We’ve seen a shift from individual technical wingers to a more systemic, tactical style of play, with reduced risk-taking. Second, manufacturing techniques have advanced significantly allowing for optimized methods of building the lightest boots in the game.

It’s the intersection of these two factors that defines what a speed boot means for New Balance: performance-driven design paired with an aesthetic that stays true to our brand. We also focus on the emotion and sensation the boot evokes for players at every level. These ongoing, collaborative exchanges with athletes have been critical. They’re the reason the Furon, ten years on, continues to build a loyal following—from elite professionals to the grassroots game.

The Furon is a boot that is built for fast and attacking minded players – how different is it designing a boot for those players, as opposed to those in other areas of the pitch?

Innovating for players like Bukayo, Ebere, Jeremie, and young ballers like Michelle Cooper is both one of the most challenging and rewarding aspects of our process. Their attention to detail across every facet of performance—fit, boot-to-ball interaction, and traction—sharpens our focus and pushes us to elevate the next generation of product.

The Speed Ctrl Stud is a prime example of how we translate on-pitch observations into engineered solutions that enhance an athlete’s natural game. It was born from studying how our attack-minded players decelerate—using that split second to stand up defenders before exploding past them to create space.

At its core, we believe the quicker they can brake, the faster they can accelerate.