20 Years of Laceless Football Boots: Better Than Ever

Twenty years ago, Lotto put out a football boot with no laces. Ten years later, adidas took the same idea and made it one of the biggest boot trends of the decade. Now we are another ten years on, and the timing feels too good to ignore.

Laceless football boots looked like they had settled into a fairly small corner of the market. They were still around, but the excitement had gone. Laced boots had pushed their way back to the front, foldover tongues were everywhere again and the whole idea of removing the laces no longer felt particularly new.

Then 2026 arrived. adidas still has laceless F50, Predator and Copa boots in the range, PUMA has just gone properly laceless with the Ultra Nitro 7 Ultimate and Under Armour has launched the Magnetico Elite 6 Laceless. Suddenly, there are quite a few very good football boots without laces sitting in the Bootroom again.

So how did we get here?

2006: The First Laceless Football Boot

The first proper laceless football boot came from Lotto with the Zhero Gravity in 2006. It was worn at the top level too, with Cafu, Luca Toni and Andriy Shevchenko among the players who wore it.

If you saw one now, you would know immediately what Lotto was trying to do. Take away the laces, clean up the top of the boot and leave as little as possible between the foot and the ball. The problem was getting the rest of the boot to cooperate.

Anyone who has worn a football boot with poor lockdown knows how quickly that becomes annoying. Your foot moves when you plant, the heel starts lifting and you spend more time thinking about the boot than the ball. With laces, you have a way of pulling everything together. Without them, the upper has to do far more of that work itself.

The Zhero Gravity showed the idea could be done, but football boots were not really ready to follow it yet. It stayed as one of those interesting designs you remember rather than something that changed what everybody else was wearing.

2016: The Laceless Boom Begins

A decade later, adidas tried again with the ACE 16+ Purecontrol, and this time the whole thing made much more sense.

Primeknit was a big part of that. The material could stretch enough to get your foot into the boot, then sit much closer around it than the stiffer constructions that came before. adidas also used internal knit support to help hold the foot once it was inside, which was crucial when there was no traditional lacing system to tighten everything down.

There was a proper player reason for the clean upper as well. Mesut Özil had already spoken about tying his laces over and over and tucking the ends away because he did not like them interfering with his touch. When adidas turned up with a boot that removed them completely, you could see why it appealed to him.

The ACE was the point where laceless boots stopped feeling like an odd experiment. You started seeing them everywhere. adidas carried the idea into X, Predator and Copa, New Balance built it into Tekela and other brands had a go with their own versions. For players buying boots around that time, laceless started to feel like a proper choice rather than something you only saw in concept pictures.

There was a period where every new laceless boot seemed to be positioned as the more advanced version. Clean upper, knitted collar, no knot over the top. It looked modern, especially next to the low-cut synthetic speed boots most of us had grown up with.

Had Laceless Football Boots Peaked?

By the middle of the 2020s, you could feel the market moving the other way. Foldover tongues were back, laced boots were being pushed harder again and even within ranges that still offered laceless models, the traditional version was often the one you saw more of on pitch.

Some of that was fashion, but there was also a very obvious football reason. Laces are useful. If a boot is a touch roomy through the midfoot, you can pull it in. If you need a bit more space across the forefoot, you can leave the lower section looser. You can change the tension depending on your foot, your socks and how you like the boot to feel. A laceless boot gives you far less to play with.

That has always been the trade-off. When the shape suits your foot, laceless can feel brilliant. There is no lace pressure and the upper sits cleanly over the ball. When the fit is slightly off, you notice it quickly because there is nothing to pull tighter before kick-off.

By 2025, that seemed to be where laceless had landed. Still useful, still popular with some players, but no longer looking like the direction every football boot was heading. The market had stopped treating laces like a problem that desperately needed solving.

Which is why the current crop is interesting.

2026: Laceless Football Boots Are So Back

adidas never really left. The current F50 Hyperfast still has laceless Elite, Pro and League options, while Predator and Copa also keep laceless versions in the range. That is already a lot of choice, and it covers very different types of boot rather than one specific player profile.

The F50 is probably the easiest one to understand. It is a close-fitting speed boot where a clean upper makes sense. If your foot fills the shape properly, the laceless version can feel very natural. The laced F50 gives you more control over lockdown, so we would still steer plenty of players that way, especially if they are between sizes or need more adjustment through the midfoot.

Predator shows another side of it. There is more structure and grip through the upper, and adidas now lets you choose between laced, laceless and the foldover tongue. That is probably where laceless fits best in 2026. It is a fit choice rather than something that automatically makes one version better than another.

The bigger sign that things are changing comes from PUMA and Under Armour.

The PUMA Ultra Nitro 7 Ultimate Laceless is a full top-end speed boot. It uses the lightweight ULTRAWEAVE upper, with NITROFOAM and the SPEEDSYSTEM 2.0 outsole underneath. PUMA lists the fit as narrow, which is worth paying attention to. If you already like a close speed-boot fit, the laceless construction makes sense. If you normally need to open the upper up and play around with the laces, the standard version is going to be easier to live with.

Under Armour has gone another way with the new Magnetico Elite 6 Laceless. Its Liquid Clone upper is built to mould around the foot, with the heel counter and overall shape doing more of the work normally helped by the laces. It is another proper Elite-level laceless boot arriving now, rather than an old model hanging around at the back of the range.

That is what makes 2026 feel different. adidas has kept the idea alive, but PUMA and Under Armour are putting real development into it again too.

So, Are Laceless Football Boots Back?

It looks that way.

The difference from 2016 is that nobody needs to pretend laces are about to disappear. We have had ten years of playing in laceless boots now, and the good and bad bits are fairly clear.

A laceless boot can give you a really clean, wrapped feel when the shape suits your foot. You lose some adjustability, so fit becomes even more important. If I had movement through the heel or too much room over the midfoot, I would take the laced version every time. If the boot fits properly without needing to be pulled into shape, laceless makes much more sense.

Lotto got there first in 2006. adidas turned it into a proper movement in 2016. In 2026, with F50, Predator, Copa, Ultra and Magnetico all offering laceless options, the idea has found its way back into the middle of the Bootroom.

Browse the latest laceless football boots at Pro:Direct Soccer, or compare the wider football boots range by brand, surface and fit.