Catarina Macario says she loves to surprise her parents. So much so that she hadn’t told them about her new feat as the face of adidas x Prada’s first football boot collection. The campaign images feature Macario with her game face on, something that she’s perfected over the years. This new boot collection makes her reminisce on the days she’d dreamt about being a pro baller. She tells ESSENCE, “Honestly, I feel like my younger self and her present self does not really believe that this is all happening or like is my life at this point.” Moments of realizing you’ve accomplished your dreams and yet can still accomplish more can feel surreal to anyone. Macario’s work ethic, however, is truly unmatched. She cites her parents’ sacrifices as her driving force, and as they moved to the U.S., she knew that she had to keep pushing herself even harder. Eventually, she played soccer at the prestigious Stanford. “Now, I am here today and have this opportunity to be with adidas to talk with you and represent you like the product. So, it’s just things like that that honestly makes me a little bit emotional just because my youngest self would not have imagined it,” she tells ESSENCE.
Macario’s routine going into a game is like going into a battlefield with an incessant need to win. When she puts on her uniform, soccer is the only thing that matters. “When I put on my uniform, it’s like time to get serious, let’s get to work. It brings on more concentration, and I think about the team that I’m representing at that time, and it just gets me thinking of what I want to achieve that day, and it’s kind of a reset.”
Fashion for Macario stems from her mother pretty much styling her, and from that, she gained a balance of feminine and powerful personal style. “You can definitely see more footballers view fashion in a way of growing their brands, which is something that is very cool. It’s not just, ‘I play football, so let me just constantly wear sweatpants,’ which is what I did in college [laughs]. Now, as a woman, I do like to dress up.”
When the superstar footballer isn’t constantly training, she’s reading books as a way to keep her mind occupied to avoid overstimulating it (she’s currently reading The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, if you were curious). “I don’t wanna stress my eyes with like phones. So I like to disconnect myself with reading.” She’s also mindful to separate her personal life from her career, enjoying more simple things like going out with friends, to the movies, or out to eat.
The adidas Football for Prada collection features three classic adidas products with Prada detailing that every soccer player loves — the Predator Accuracy, the Copa Pure, and the X Crazyfast “Prada is just classy,” states Macario. “The fact that they were able to transform athletic shoes like this is adidas but also it’s Prada, it’s something that is very special, and I feel incredibly honored to be a part of this campaign. As soon as they showed me the cleats, I was like, ‘Oh, do we get to wear these? They’re too sexy for sure.”
The performance shoe is reimagined in luxury materials with touches of Prada’s Linea Rossa on each shoe that comes in black, white, and silver. The white pair, the Copas, is Macario’s personal favorite out of the three The new boot designs will showcase in an exclusive kit for the FIFA 23 Ultimate Team TM video game. This will make the partnership an intersection of the physical and digital worlds.
You can shop the collection now on the adidas CONFIRMED app, prada.com, and in select Prada stores.