Nike Taking Dallas Cup to a Whole New Level

By Daniel Robertson

When it was announced earlier in the year that Nike would be joining the Dr. Pepper Dallas Cup family everyone associated with the tournament knew this would be a match made in heaven, but no one could anticipate just how far Nike was planning on going to make the Dr. Pepper Dallas Cup the premier youth tournament in the world. From a purely aesthetic standpoint, Nike has draped the areas around Pizza Hut Park with some of the coolest banners you'll see featuring Dallas Cup stars of the past like Clint Dempsey and Robinho while taking the available merchandise places we've never seen before at the tournament.

Anyone who has been to the tournament so far has no doubt stopped by one of the numerous Nike merchandise tents around here and been blown away by the ridiculously cool shirts and hats. Perhaps the neatest part of Nike's presence at Dr. Pepper Dallas Cup XXXI has been their boot room and adjoining Nike Soccer+ training challenge.

Located on field 10 right behind the Dr. Pepper Victory Center and in the nearest parking lot right next to Technology Drive, the Nike boot room and Soccer+ training challenge showcases their spiffy new line of soccer boots. Open to the public the entire week of Dallas Cup, anyone can go check out the three new styles of boots, the Total 90 Laser III's , Mercurial Vapor Superfly II, and CTR360's.

After deciding which of the boots is your favorite, go to the other side of the tent and sign up for the Nike Soccer+ Challenge. There's three different challenges that target specific areas of skill that were developed with world superstars Cristiano Ronaldo, Fernando Torres and Cesc Fabregas. First, players try the master accuracy test known as the Torres Challenge, second is the Master Control known as the Cesc Challenge and finally you go to the Master Speed known as the Ronaldo Test.

Head over to the tent and see if you can beat my terrible scores and get your name on the big screen scoreboard outside of their tent featuring the top scores of the week. Here's my scores:

Master Control: 31.15(particularly shameful)

Master Accuracy: 68.91

Master Speed 25.23

If you're wondering how I remember my scores, they give you a very cool lanyard and card with your scores digitally printed on there.....did I mention this was all free?

So head on over to the Nike Soccer+ tent at Dr. Pepper Dallas Cup and if you're not in Dallas head over to www.nikesoccer.com to get tons of more info on the whole line of Nike's new boots.

Nike Boot Room Album