Fila + Core77

by Josh Rubin

Sneaker collaborations are a dime a dozen these days, so it’s pretty rare that something really unique and fresh turns up. Fila and design website Core77 cooked up these kicks for Core’s 11th birthday. They were originally reported to be denim, but closer inspection revealed they’re treated to look like they were carved from blue foam, a popular modeling material in design schools and firms worldwide. Anyone who’s worked with this material (ourselves included) will immediately recognize it. Core77 even replicated a familiar manufacturer’s diamond logo on the side of the shoe.

Other details include an embroidered 77 on the tongue, and what appears to be a thumbnail sketch of a humorous Jagermeister dispenser concept on the insole. Our sample pair also came with both standard and wide laces - no word on what the production models ended up with. These ran the risk of ending up as an industrial designer in-joke, though luckily they look nice with some raw denim and a white tee on a summer’s day. No word on how the blue foam material will breathe, however.

Only 300 were made, available exclusively through core77.com, lots more pictures after the jump.

Contributed by Ryan Tomorrow

Pop Soda

by Evan Orensten

These artisinal, small batch sodas are hand made in Moretown, VT using a converted seven barrel beer brewer. They juice the fruits and distill the extracts on site, add some cane sugar, local herbs and honey, and then they carbonate them. That's about all that goes into the bottle, and the results are refreshing, full of flavor and just sweet enough to please.

Pop Soda currently offers three varieties: Citrus Hibiscus, Mint Lime and Lemon Lavendar. Available at many locations in/near Vermont and online.

Soccer Urinal

by Josh Rubin

We saw this one a while back, but with World Cup in full effect it seemed time to post it. Installed in select Brazilian pubs, the campaign takes the concept of captive audience a step further. A makeshift pitch is comprised of a small plastic goal and moth ball looking ball placed on the urinal's splash guard and is a component of the advert above that translates to "Soccer is good everywhere, but it's much better on ESPN."

via AdFreak and Ads of the World

The African Game

by Ami Kealoha

To celebrate the sport and culture of African football, Puma enlisted writer Knox Robinson and Nigerian filmmaker Andrew Dosunmu to create The African Game, a photo book documenting the players and people behind the world's most beloved pastime. We checked in with Knox and he told us about the full brass bands and shamans in the stands, the Africanization of football, and getting to know the heart of Africa. Hitting stores 13 June 2006 with a launch party at Reed Space in New York, you can also pick up the book from Rotunda Gallery opening 22 June 2006. For Knox's coverage of the African games next week, go to No Mas.

What was your experience of writing this book?
Puma had an idea to do something special to celebrate their relationship with some of Africa's best national football teams, so they approached the NYC-based creative collective US&THEM collaborate on such a project. At US&THEM we connected with Andrew Dosunmu since I'd worked with him before and knew he was only man for the job.

What was your personal relationship to football, Africa, and African football going into this project?
I've probably been thinking about Africa my whole life, but I'm still perpetually shook by the path opened up by a deep relationship with the place. For this project, I had the abstract goal of doing something different, showing some other side of african life that you dont ever see reported in western media. I had never followed African football before and my relationship to the sport itself was basically tangential and ran along cultural lines. I knew about the South American angle and a couple English teams, the usual Arsenal vs. Manchester United talk. Plus, living in Brooklyn it's nothing to catch Central American matches in Red Hook or Trinidadians playing in Prospect Park. I saw Flamengo win the Rio state championship in 2004.

How did working on this book change the way you think about African football?
Even though i had been to Africa before and I travel in that cultural space, the experience of working and traveling with Andrew made me understand African life on a much more basic level, beyond its amazing music and art and literature. I got a glimpse into the continent's clockworks, its heart.

Given your background in music, what kind of differences did you notice in music's role in the sport?
Once you get past the full body-paint look, it's a little different from how the sport is sometimes seen in Europe. People sing at games in Africa, but they don't make monkey noises, throw bananas, and scream racist taunts at the players they way fans do at stadiums in Spain, Italy, and Germany. Half-jokes aside, naturally there are a lot of celebratory songs and dances, plus a range of elements from full brass bands to shamans putting juju on opposing teams. In the stands it's also about style and culture rather than a corporate sport experience.

What do you see for African football's future and how do you think that will influence Africa itself?
Africa already has a great reputation in football due to quality players and some legendary games at the world cup. In 1990 Cameroon beat defending champs Argentina in the opening stages and Senegal beat defending champs France in the first game the 2002 tournament. Both teams went on to the quarterfinals. But, neither team is in germany right now. It's the kind of thing that points to the idea that African football on a national level is getting more and more competitive. People talk about the internationalization of football, but it's looking like the Africanization of the sport. African players—to say nothing of players of African descent in the rest of the world—are currently among the best (and best-paid) on the planet. It's been those players who have forced the sport's governing body to work with the European Union to confront racism at stadiums there. Meanwhile most of these players maintain strong connections to their countries, so they're working at building back home as well. And, all that's happening when they're not engaged in their primary pursuit of creating magic on the pitch. The world cup is in South Africa in 2010, so whatever happens this summer in Germany is almost like a fuse a being lit to detonate four years from now.