Nike’s CryoShot X2 Collection is Late to the #BootsOnly Party

The FIFA World Cup has finally kicked off this week, and brands are rolling out a tidal wave of gear to celebrate. Nike is releasing their CryoShot X2 collection this week, more than a year after they revealed the concept. But did they take too long?

Nike is kicking off their World Cup celebration this week with the X2 Collection, a global collaborative effort centered on the CryoShot. Not a singular model, the CryoShot line modifies vintage football boots with a clear casing around their spikes, making them wearable as everyday sneakers. The concept was first introduced over a year ago in Spring 2025 with two models, the Mercurial R9 and Tiempo Legend 10R, incased in a block of ice. At the time, Nike was hopping on a TikTok trend dubbed #bootsonly, in which fashionable young creators were donning their cleats for everyday outings like getting coffee, running errands, or a simple fit check. Again, that was over a year ago. Those two initial models still have not made it to market.

Nike’s first reveal of their CryoShot line was quite timely given the emerging trend. The first video declaring the season a #bootsonly Summer went up in April, and by May 30th the Swoosh shared their first look at the new sneakers. However, they weren’t even the first major sneaker brand to do it. adidas beat them to the punch by several weeks, thanks to leaks of the F50 Adiframe surfacing on May 9th. Both brand’s styles featured the same clear casing around the boots’ spikes, in an effort to make them easier to wear for trendy TikTok videos. Neither would release their modified boots until 2026; the Adiframe arrived in February, and Nike’s first release held off until this week.

Production cycles for footwear are long, I know. Designing, sampling, manufacturing, and distributing a new sneaker can take anywhere between twelve and eighteen months. It is clear that both adidas and Nike had been working on these shoes before the trend made it’s way across social media, given that both were able to show off their concepts very early in a fast trend cycle last Spring. The simplest explanation for the year-long gap between initial teases and public releases is almost certainly that both adidas and Nike were already in the prototyping stage when the TikTok blew up, rushed some early samples through, and shared them with the world ahead of schedule.

@.madmaxx1 #onthisday keep tagging me in your videos, what a time #bootsonlysummer @adidas ♬ original sound – MP

I am not a TikTok user, but I am fairly certain that, like most online fads, the #bootsonly movement did not make it to 2026. The reemergence of CryoShot sneakers this season completely baffled me, and I still can’t figure out why exactly this is Nike’s big play for the World Cup. The project might have been better off if they hadn’t jumped at the chance to gain some Internet Points by revealing the shoes last May. Nike is known for being fiercely protective of special projects, and revealing something this big only to go silent for the next 367 days is not exactly the shrewd marketing we have come to expect from the Swoosh.

However, I am intrigued by them. The colors are great, and retro trainers are right up my alley. However, my only motivation to get a pair is to check out whats going on underfoot, and $200+ is a monumental barrier of entry for an old soccer cleat with a standard rubber sole. My gripe with the Nike collection is that it feels like too little, too late. adidas released their version a few months ago, and while that still took them nearly a year, they are not the Three Stripes main attraction for this Summer’s tournament.

Credit where it is due, Nike’s X2 project is an excellent way to roll out exclusive World Cup gear. The Swoosh enlisted seven of their collaborative partners to design an apparel collection and accompanying CryoShots for their home country’s national teams. The lineup includes Virgil Abloh Archives for the USA, Drake & NOCTA for Canada, Jacquemus for France, Patta for The Netherlands, Palace for England, Slawn for Nigeria, and PeaceMinusOne for South Korea. Each collection is limited, and currently dropping via regional-exclusive releases this week, with a global drop from the SNKRS app coming next Tuesday. Plus, some of the gear is really good. Did you see Palace’s medieval artwork jersey for England?

With the expansive drops finally underway this week, I was finally able to pinpoint what exactly bothered me about Nike’s version of reviving archival boots. A few days ago, a leak from my favorite sneaker information guy @brandon1an popped up on Twitter. He shared a mockup of the Air Max Joga Bonita R9, a mashup of a Mercurial R9 upper and Air Max 95 sole, releasing later this Summer. This is what I wanted to see for a soccer-turned-lifestyle release. The pair in question borrows it’s wavy upper from Ronaldo Nazário’s 1998 World Cup boots, pairing perfectly with the midsole from another wavy Nike icon. The Joga Bonita name is a nod to Pelé’s motto for the Brazilian team, meaning to play beautifully, and from Nike’s JogaTV YouTube channel in the early 2000s. This shoe tells a story, weaving Nike’s history in the world’s most popular sport with a cultural artifact from decades past and modern day sneaker culture. While I like that each collaborator in the X2 project (seemingly) got to choose their silhouette, releases like the Air Max R9 are a better fit for the World Cup opening ceremonies this week. The formula is simple: grab a boot from a historic moment in World Cup history, pair it with an appropriate pre-existing midsole, and dress it in colors from a player or team the model is associated with.

Nike has a long history of incredibly cool boots, stretching back decades before my time admiring other player’s cleats on youth soccer fields. Bringing them back for a new generation seems like a no-brainer, but was this really the best way to do it?

If you’d like to argue about whether or not CryoShots are a hit or a miss, find me on Twitter. For more World Cup gear coverage from JustFreshKicks, follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook .

The post Nike’s CryoShot X2 Collection is Late to the #BootsOnly Party appeared first on JustFreshKicks.