Talking Nike Magista 2 Technology With Phil Woodman : Interviews : Soccer Bible

Ahead of Nike launching the second chapter in the Magista story we swung by Nike Paris HQ to sit down with Nike Football Footwear Designer, Phil Woodman, who was in town for the EURO 2016 final. Phil and his team have obsessed over every last detail of the Magista 2 and he was on hand to explain the key new technologies on the highly anticipated second-generation.

Phil, can you outline the evolution from the first Magista to the Magista 2?

"With the Magista 2, it wasn’t a case of us simply thinking how we could evolve the first Magista. We thought about how the foot would have evolved if its sole purpose was to play football, just like how pruning hands were an evolutionary development for maintaining grip on wet surfaces. We started studying morphology of the foot and going back to data and insight. We have the Nike Sports Research Lab at world HQ which is a phenomenal resource where we can access crazy amounts of data, so we did control studies of how players interact with the ball, and that really formed where on the foot we needed to heighten the sensation of touch. Also, speaking with the pediatrist informed us as to where on the foot is receptive to touch and sensation, so that really helped us to create a texture shared by data that we never had before."

"The first Magista was a surface texture for the ball and we’ve really taken that to the next level. It’s still a surface texture to interact with the ball but when you look at the package of the boot it has this 3D geometry. That texture also goes inside the boot, so when you interact with the ball on the top surface of the boot this then puts pressure on points inside the boot, on the foot and activates those sensation points on the foot, stimulating the senses and then communicating the boot to brain interaction."



What’s the player feedback been like so far?

"It’s been amazing so far. The players have been involved in the whole process. From day one, we gave them the first initial concepts and we’ve tweaked and tuned it using their feedback until it’s perfect. The Magista 2 is two years in the making.You could say the beginning is the easy bit when you come up with ideas and then it’s the execution of it that takes the time. For example the Flyknit that makes up the boot, we had 129 versions of it. We had the initial idea and then it was just fine-tuning it. It’s a very complex simplicity, it’s essentially one piece but the complexity of the problems we’re solving with that one piece takes a lot of time and a lot of expertise."

"We’ve integrated different yarn types and different knit structures to add support and lockdown in these Flywire cables. We’ve used different structures for the height of the boot that blend into the stretch areas. Each part of the boot is specific to how it reacts with the ball."

How do you look back on the past two years of the first Magista?

"It’s hard to remember the day when boots didn’t have a high-collar on them. The game is constantly evolving and we’re evolving product to match that. The high-collar quickly became normal because of the clear purposes it serves. At first it may have seemed strange to players but that’s the thing about Nike, were not afraid. Everything we do is to improve athletes and has to solve a problem, we have to ask ourselves 'why?' and there has to be an answer to that."

"The high top was born from the insight of athletes saying how they wanted their boot to feel like an extension of the leg. The Magista 2 has really integrated itself as part of the body. We’re constantly evolving and refining and you can see with the Magista 2 that we've really studied the anatomy of the foot. Having coverage over the ankle bone and dipping over the tendons was a key feature. The pointing of the foot is the motion we studied, the motion when you strike the ball with your laces, that’s the motion that creates the most movement from the tendons and the Magista 2 collar allows the tendons to move more freely but still maintains that compression."



Visually, it’s unique. Can you explain the heat map graphic?

"The design always starts from an insight to performance. The inspiration for this design came from the insights we gathered at the Nike Sports Research Lab. We used the data from the heat map, something everyone is familiar with – whether that’s pressure maps or the weather or possession stats, it’s always presented in this infographic. We thought how we could digitally express the science behind the boot and we kept exploring and we had this data and we thought, let’s just overlay it. It draws your eye to the high performance areas on the boot and it’s a real performance based design that highlights the objective of the Magista 2. All of the prototypes we made of Magista 2 had the heat map right on them for data purposes, but it creates an iconic aesthetic as well that’s unlike anything else on the pitch."

Want a pair? Pick up the Nike Magista 2 here from July 26.