Adidas builds intelligent soccer cleats that can outwit even Joey Barton

Impoverished football soccer clubs, with their massive stadiums, billionaire owners and millionaire star players have it awful hard, you know. If a club wanted a statistical analysis of the team's movements over the 90 minutes (more if Sir Alex Ferguson is involved) then it needs to spend big on a ProZone statistics system. That's all due to change, thanks to Adidas' new adizero f50 miCoach -- an "intelligent football boot" that includes a space for the miCoach Speed Cell, a tracking device that works like a souped-up Nike+iPod. The chip records your speed, sprint times, distance, step and stride rates, stores it for up to seven hours and pushes it over WiFi or USB to the device of your choice. You'll be able to share your stats online with friends via Facebook and compare them to pros like diminutive pitchman Lionel Messi, diminutive Welshman Gareth Bale and the, ah, not-so-diminutive Emmanuel Adebayor. A pair of boots, Speed Cell and dongle will require your bank account to shrink to the tune of €245 ($330) and will hit the stores in November -- just in time for you to sit indoors during the snowy January transfer window.