The invention relates to a soccer boot comprising a sole and a shaft connected to the sole, the shaft defining a foot opening.

Soccer boots exist in many embodiments. There is a requirement that a soccer boot fits snugly around a foot of the soccer player. This should apply to feet irrespective their size. Also within a given size the dimensions of a foot, in particular the width and height distribution of the foot may vary considerably within the size-range. In addition, a considerable amount of opening space must be created at the foot opening of the shoe when the shoe is going to be worn. Almost all types of soccer boots are equipped with laces, on the one hand to create additional space at the foot opening when stepping in the shoe, following which a tight fit of the shoe may be realised by tightening the laces.

A drawback of laces is thet they take a lot of space and the area taken up by the laces give a rather uneven sur- face, which is disadvantageous for shot control. Covering up the laces has been the only option so far, but the lack of feeling and the limited choice of materials makes this a suboptimal solution. Also attempts have been made to reduce the disadvantage of the laces and it negative influence on the feeling of the player by moving the laces off centre towards the outside of the foot. However still it cannot be avoided that the laces interfere with areas that players use for shooting .

It is an object of the present invention to propose a soccer boot that provides for easily fitting into the boot and subsequently closing it such the boot tightly fits on the foot .

Further it is an object that a boot is obtained providing reduced interference with the shot areas of the boot, the so called sweet spots.

These and other objectives which may become apparent from the following disclosure are acquired with a boot in accordance with one or more of the appended claims.

In a first aspect of the invention a soccer boot is proposed with the features of claim 1. A preferable embodiment has the features of claim 2. It should be mentioned with reference to the features of the first and second claim, that the rear of the boot is meant to lie at the tip of the heel and the length is measured from the tip of the heel to the tip of the toe. The outer side of the boot is defined as the side facing away and opposite to the side that is facing the other shoe of a pair.

For a shoe of size 42 (German/Dutch shoe size) the average required variation in size of the opening amounts to approximately 7 cm, of which about 5 cm are needed during stepping in. Only about 2 cm are needed to accommodate for dimensional variation of the feet of the population of the wearers. The soccer boot according to the invention comprises a hinge in the sole to enable easy fitting of a foot in the boot. An example of such a hinge is disclosed in European patent EP-B-2 173 208 owned by the applicant. Because of this hinge technology, only dimensional variation of the feet have to be accomodated. For this purpose the soccer boot according to the invention is provided with slits with a variable closing mechanism. This is known as such, however since only a small variation needs to be provided, such slits and their variable closing mechanism takes up much less space than the known closing systems in prior art boots. According to the in- vention it is possible to limit the location of these slits and their closing mechanism to areas that are exactly outside the sweet spots of a soccer boot. Thus with a boot according to the invention shot control and feel and control of the ball contact are not impeded.

In a preferred embodiment the soccer boot according to the invention comprises slits where the closing mechanism is formed by a strip of elastic material that covers the slit and is attached to the shaft material. For wider feet the elastic material will stretch during use, but a proper choice of the elastic material will ensure a snug fit of the boot to the foot. However other closing mechanisms, such as a lace, can also be made to function satisfactory. The core of the invention is that the slit or slits occupy so little space that they can be positioned outside the sweet spot area. In a preferred embodiment, the elastic strips and the slits are designed such that in the unloaded condition the slits are closed and that for the widest foot during use the combined opening of the slits does not exceed 2 cm. This keeps irregularities in the surface, which is already considerably less than with laces, and which are moreover in the invention at harmless locations, limited to a minimum.

It is beneficial when only one slit is applied which is located in the first area. This area is the larger of the two and also the least prone to come during use in contact with the ball. In another preferable embodiment a design with one relatively larger slit in the first area and a relatively smaller slit in the second may give an increased flexibility in terms of dimensional variation with very limited influence on shot control and feeling.

Elastic material of a thickness equal to or less than 0,5 mm can provide a smooth inside of the shaft and still retain the required elastic properties.

The invention will now be further elucidated with reference to an exemplary embodiment of a soccer boot according to the invention shown in the attached drawing, which is non-limiting as to the claims and in which:

-Fig. 1 shows a schematic top view of a soccer boot and sweet spots indicated thereon;

-Fig. 2 shows a schematic top view of an embodiment of a soccer boot according to the invention; and

-Fig. 3 shows a schematic top view in detail of a slit and an elastic strip attached to the shaft material.

Whenever in the figures the same reference numerals are employed, these numerals refer to the same parts.

Fig. 1 shows a top view of a known soccer boot and thereon schematically indicated five sweet spot areas, indicated by numeral 3. These areas are important for shot control and feel of ball contact for a player and therefore undesira- ble to accommodate disturbing shoe-parts such as laces. Also shown in fig. 1 are areas 1 and 2, which are outside the sweet spots 3 and which may therefore provide a suitable location for a mechanism that accommodates for size differences between different feet. Fig. 2 shows a top view of an embodiment of a soccer boot according to the invention. The boot has comprises a longitudinal axis 4 and indicated are heel tip 5 at the rear of the boot and toe tip 6 at the front. Also indicated are outer side 7 and inner side 8. Slits 9 and 10, which in the figure are drawn in a stretched condition for clarity, lie in the first area and second area, respectively. The first and second areas 1, 2 are not indicated. Fig. 2 is not necessarily drawn to scale, such that it may not be possible to establish from the figure that slits 9 and 10 do fully lie in in the first area and second area, respectively. Hinge lines 13 indicate how the back part of the boot may hinge open to facilitate stepping in and out of the boot by means of a shoe hinge mechanism provided in the sole of the shoe.

Fig 3 clarifies in a top view of a slit 9, 10 how elastic strip 11 is covering the slit 9, 10 and is attached to the shaft material 12.

List of reference numbers

1 first area

2 second area

3 sweet spots

4 longitudinal axis

5 tip of heel

6 tip of toe

7 outer side

8 inner side

9 slit in first area

10 slit in second area

11 elastic material

12 shaft material

13 hinge lines