Patta Froze Ronaldo’s 1998 Mercurial in Clear TPU and Made It Dutch

The Patta x Nike CryoShot is not a basketball shoe, which is what this post said before. It is a football boot with its studs sealed under a transparent outsole so it can be worn on pavement. The donor is the Mercurial Vapor R9, the boot Ronaldo Nazário wore through the 1998 World Cup, and Patta rebuilt it in Dutch colors for the KNVB. Nike named the franchise CryoShot because the idea is cryogenic preservation, and the clear tooling is the freezer.

CryoShot is a new Nike franchise rather than a retro. Nike launched it in 2026 as the line where, in its own words, football boots become wearable symbols of the here and now, preserving the integrity of historic football boots. The method is literal. Nike takes a historic boot, keeps its upper and its soleplate, and encases the studs in a clear TPU outsole so the tooling stays visible while you walk on it. Nike credits Enrico Carbonere as lead designer, with Harry Sun on Nike Sportswear footwear development and Michele Galasso as lead footwear developer in Italy.

The boots run through the franchise so far include Ronaldo’s 1998 Mercurial, the Nike Striker, the Tiempo 94 and the Zoom M9. That is the distinction this post got wrong before. The CryoShot itself has no history. The heritage belongs entirely to the boot inside it, and here that boot is one of the most consequential football boots ever made.

Patta’s version swaps the R9’s Brazil palette for the Netherlands. The full colorway runs Metallic Silver / Hyper Crimson – Black – Anthracite – Metallic Silver, which Nike shortens to Hyper Crimson and Black. The upper keeps the original synthetic leather construction of the R9, and the fold-over tongue is removable, which is the tell that this is a boot conversion and not a sneaker wearing a novelty sole.

The Dutch content is specific rather than decorative. The wider collection carries the States Lion from the Dutch coat of arms, charms representing the heritages of KNVB players, city symbols, and the Ala Kondre necklace pattern, a Surinamese reference running directly through Patta’s own founders and through Dutch football itself. Nike titles the collaboration Oranje by Patta and says it honors Favela Street, a street football organization whose logo appears on the pre-match jersey.

The Surinamese thread is not a marketing note either. Patta was established in Amsterdam in 2004 by Edson Sabajo and Guillaume “Gee” Schmidt, two figures out of the Dutch hip-hop and nightlife scene of the 1990s and early 2000s, Sabajo as a DJ and Schmidt as an MC and event host, who started the shop by sourcing sneakers and records for their own community. The heritage symbolism running through this collection comes from the people who built the brand, which is why it reads as argument rather than costume.

This sits inside Nike’s 2026 World Cup X2 program, which paired seven nations with seven designers. Canada went to NOCTA, England to Palace, France to Jacquemus, Nigeria to Slawn, South Korea to PEACEMINUSONE and the United States to V.A.A. Patta getting the Netherlands is the one pairing in the program that needed no explanation.

Patta has been building toward it. Nike calls Patta its longest and most impactful Air Max collaborator, more than ten projects and six Air Max 1 colorways across a relationship dating to the 2009 Chlorophyll. The football work is newer, a Mercurial Vapor 16 boot and an FC Barcelona collection. Going from a club collaboration to the national federation on home soil in a World Cup year is the top of that arc. Worth stating plainly what this is not. No source confirms Patta holds formal partner status with the KNVB. It is a collaboration Nike assembled, and the KNVB’s own shop sells it.

Patta listed the shoe at €200. Nike’s Singapore store carried it at S$289 and Australia at A$270, both from Nike’s own product data. Sneaker Bar Detroit put the US price at $200, and no Nike US page survived to confirm that, so treat the dollar figure as reported rather than settled. For scale inside the same collection, the KNVB shop sells the co-branded pre-match training shirt at €69.99, so the shoe carries most of the collection’s cost on its own. Both the Singapore and Australia listings now read sold out.

The Patta x Nike CryoShot Mercurial Vapor R9 released in three stages, June 11, 2026 at Patta’s own stores and website, June 13 at Dover Street Market, and June 16 on SNKRS and at select Nike retailers. Style code IM0589-001, listed at €200 and reported at $200. This post previously carried no release date and no price, and called the CryoShot a basketball silhouette, which it is not.

Read next: The complete 2026 World Cup archive, every match, every goal, and the kit and boot each one was scored in.

Source: Houseofheat

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The Sneakers Team

The Sneakers Team is the editorial desk behind becausesneakers, founded and edited by Nick Engvall. Nick has spent more than two decades in the sneaker industry. He built the original Eastbay Blog, led the first dedicated sneaker team at Complex, ran the first UGC and seeding programs at Finish Line, was employee number nine at StockX, and served as Senior Director at Stadium Goods. He hosts the Sneaker History podcast, and his first book, Small Luxuries: Sneakers, arrives in October 2026 from Motorbooks. Release details on this site are checked against the brand's own product information before publication, and anything we cannot confirm is labelled rather than stated.

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