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Adidas Spezial: a suffix, not a model

Spezial is the German word for special, and adidas has used it for decades as an addition after model names. As a result there is no single shoe simply called the Spezial. What does exist are three branches that share the word and otherwise have little to do with each other. This page collects versions from all three, and it’s useful to know which one you’re looking at.

The first and best-known is the handball shoe. It is listed on this site under Adidas Handball, with by far the largest selection of the three: a low indoor shoe with a flat, grippy sole and suede upper, designed for a hall floor and later adopted by British football culture.

The second is SPZL as its own model label. Under adidas SPZL a series appears annually with its own names, often named after English towns and clubs: Glenbuck, Hulton, Padiham, Intack, Wilsy, Winterhill. They are standalone designs in smaller runs, not variants of a single shoe.

The third is the revival of old model names of which Spezial was part, such as the Adidas Munchen and the Spezialist. These come from the indoor and training lines of the seventies and eighties.

Because those three branches are constructed differently, this page contains no construction description: what applies to the handball shoe usually does not apply to an SPZL design. So check the title to see which branch you’re looking at and follow the link to the corresponding page. If you’re after the classic hall shape, you’ll find the same type of shoe with a more straightforward selection under the Samba and the Gazelle.

On this page you’ll see which versions of the Adidas Spezial are currently hottest according to the Hypescore, from which price they can be found, and in how many shops they are in stock.