How adidas’ F1-Inspired CLIMACOOL SYSTEM Is Keeping Players Cool at the 2026 World Cup

• adidas’ CLIMACOOL SYSTEM includes a cooling vest, an insulating jacket, and a cooling overshoe.
• The technology was originally developed for Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team drivers before being adapted for football.
• The system can reduce core body temperature by up to 0.5°C and foot temperature by 2°C within seven minutes.
• All adidas partner federations competing at the 2026 FIFA World Cup will receive the CLIMACOOL SYSTEM.

Playing 90 minutes of football is hard enough. Doing it in the middle of a North American summer, with rising temperatures and humidity that make everything feel heavier, adds an entirely different challenge.

That’s something players have had to contend with at the 2026 FIFA World Cup, where heat has become another factor teams must manage alongside tactics, fitness, and recovery. While lighter kits and breathable fabrics can help, adidas has taken a more aggressive approach with its new CLIMACOOL SYSTEM—a three-piece cooling setup designed to help players lower their body temperature before and during matches.

The system combines a cooling vest, insulating jacket and cooling overshoes, giving players a way to actively cool different parts of the body while they’re off the pitch. Spain is among the national teams using it during the tournament, with the Spanish federation describing high temperatures as a major challenge for players at certain World Cup venues.

But perhaps the most interesting part of the setup is where the idea came from. Before adidas started putting frozen cooling vests on footballers, the technology had its roots in another sport where dealing with extreme heat is part of the job — Formula 1.

Formula 1 and football might seem like two different worlds apart, but when you pause for a second and think of what it takes to keep athletes performing in extreme conditions, there’s more crossover than you might expect. F1 drivers can spend an entire race strapped into incredibly hot cockpits while wearing layers of fire-resistant clothing and protective equipment, losing anywhere from 2-4 kgs per race.

That challenge helped inspire the technology behind adidas’ CLIMACOOL SYSTEM. The cooling concept was originally developed for motorsport before adidas adapted it for football, where the equipment needed to be easy to put on, quick to remove, and usable during the short windows players have before kick-off and at half-time.

Instead of trying to cool players while they’re running around the pitch, adidas is targeting the moments when they’re stationary. A player can use the equipment before kick-off, during a break or as part of their recovery routine, then remove everything before returning to action. It’s a simple idea, but one that makes much more sense when you consider how little time teams have to bring a player’s temperature back down during a match.

Motorsport has spent decades chasing tiny improvements through temperature management, materials and engineering. Here, some of that same thinking is being applied not to an engine, battery or set of tyres, but to the athlete himself.

The system’s main focus is the cooling vest, worn over a player’s jersey and filled with a specialized gel frozen before use. Once the vest goes on, that gel gradually thaws and transfers its cooling effect across the upper body, particularly around the torso, abdomen and back. Spain’s football federation says the garments can reduce core body temperature by up to 0.5°C and skin temperature by up to 13°C.

Over the top goes the second part of the setup: an insulating jacket. Rather than generating the cooling itself, the jacket helps retain the effect of the frozen vest underneath. Think of it almost like wrapping insulation around something cold — the idea is to keep that cooling concentrated around the player’s body instead of allowing the surrounding heat to quickly undo the work.

Then come arguably the strangest-looking part of the system: the CLIMACOOL cooling overshoes. They slip directly over a player’s football boots and contain cooling gel designed to bring down the temperature around the feet. They may look oversized from the outside, but they’ve undergone proper testing. Researchers at Loughborough University put footballers through exercise sessions in climatic chambers simulating the peak heat expected during World Cup matches, then evaluated the overshoes during breaks.

The results are where things get interesting. Loughborough researchers found that the overshoes helped reduce foot temperature, gave players an overall cooling sensation and, importantly, reduced their perceived physical effort when they began exercising again compared with no cooling. That’s potentially valuable at half-time, when a player has only a short period to recover before heading back out for another 45 minutes.

Put all three pieces together, and you essentially have a head-to-toe cooling station a player can wear while the manager talks tactics. It’s not exactly subtle — particularly those boot covers — but if you’re trying to get every possible advantage during the biggest tournament in football, looking a little strange for 15 minutes probably isn’t much of a concern.

Formula 1 and football might seem worlds apart, but both sports share one particularly difficult challenge — keeping athletes cool while performing at the highest level. F1 drivers can spend an entire race strapped inside brutally hot cockpits while wearing layers of fire-resistant clothing and protective equipment, which is where the thinking behind adidas’ cooling technology first took shape. The system was originally developed to help Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula 1 drivers cope with those extreme conditions before adidas began adapting the idea for football.

That meant taking something designed around the demands of a racing cockpit and making it practical on the football pitch. Players needed equipment they could put on quickly before kick-off, during half-time or immediately after training — and remove just as easily when it was time to play.

adidas continued developing the football-specific system with input from players and medical staff at clubs including Manchester United, Arsenal and Juventus, eventually creating the CLIMACOOL setup being used at the 2026 World Cup. And that’s what makes the F1 connection so interesting: technology originally created to manage extreme heat in motorsport has found an entirely new purpose, helping footballers cool down during the short recovery windows that can matter so much over 90 minutes.