I’ve just been looking through the kits for Euro 2008 and its amazing how the designs in international football are still completely dominated by the big three of adidas, Nike and Puma.
Nike are supplying kits for: Croatia, Holland, Russia, Turkey and Portugal
Puma are supplying kits for: Austria, Poland, Italy, Czech Republic and Switzerland
Adidas are supplying kits for: Germany, France, Romania, Spain and Greece
…with Umbro bringing up the rear for Sweden.An illustrated summary of all the Euro 2008 kits will feature on the True Colours site very soon!
not to mention that nike own umbro now!
It’s a shame that the 5 Puma teams in the tournament are wearing kits that, apart from the obvious differences in colours and badges, are more or less the same designs.
Talk about drab uniformity. A far cry from two years ago where Puma’s v1.06 kits, despite having the same basic design, featured unique “watermarks” on the front of the shirt which added a bit of “uniqueness” to the shirt.
The new Dutch home shirt is a prime example of how not to match the socks to the rest of the kit. Yes the orange shirt and white shorts look fine, but the sky blue socks that Nike have decided upon make for a rather odd look.
I know what you mean about the Puma kits Jon – I was amazed at how similar they all are. Adidas are using only a few templates but each shirt has a little splash of individuality that makes it unique. I am a fan of Nike’s design philosophy I have to say…I quite like the socks!!
Jon – I think The Netherlands’ blue socks were made a part of the current kit because it’s a design that’s based on one of their kits from many decades ago. I don’t think we can pin the blame on Nike for that – they were purely going for authenticity in this case!
It’s the first time they used this nassau blue colour.
“The Dutch FA have a very progressive attitude towards their away kits,” says Phil Dickinson, creative director football at Nike. “We worked closely with Marco van Basten on the new kit which uses a nassau blue colour linked closely with the Dutch royal family. We’ve never used this colour on a kit before but we know they’re really happy with the design.”
very interesting read here:
http://au.fourfourtwo.com/features/4350,just-design-it.aspx
Personally I’m quite disapointed in the new holland home kit, but maybe that because I like orange/black more..I mean, these colours just look “to sweet”. Same with the away kit…nice, but “to sweet”.
The 2006 away version was great in my opinion.
I already understand the significance of the blue socks on the previous home kit, the whole kit was based on the kit worn by the Dutch team in the 1950’s when they wore blue socks. This could be attributed to the old Dutch “prinzenflag” tricolour, as well as the distinct lack of wholly pale-coloured socks in those days.
However I think if Nike would have kept that same shade of blue for the socks for this year’s kit then to me it would have looked fine. Its just the sky blue socks look rather “mis-matched”, like one of those situations where a team has to put their away kit socks with the home kit in the event of a clash.
Thanks for that link Sven, its a very interesting read. Personally, I love the two Dutch kits. ‘Mismatched’ socks crop up quite a bit in some strips, take Scotland, Rangers and even Man Utd for example.
Good point.
Well my opinion might well change once the kit has been seen in use in televised games. I’ve said negative stuff about new kits whenever they’ve been first revealed, only for them to grow on me later. Making me look a bit of a fool in the process!
Come to think of Euro 2008’s new kits, I think the new Sweden away kit is the only kit we haven’t seen yet, whether it be leaked or officially presented, anyone heard or seen anything of it yet?
I have almost all the kits available at a glance in the Euro 2008 section of my website. As Jon says just waiting for Sweden away.
http://www.football-shirts.co.uk/euro2008kits.html
Looking on UEFA’s Euro 2008 site, Sweden’s away kit will be an all-navy strip with blue and yellow trim, in what looks like a typical new Umbro kit style for this year…
http://www.euro2008.uefa.com/imgml/kits/front/127.gif
It won’t be the first time the Swedes have worn navy either, back in 2002 when the SvFF signed a deal with Umbro, the away kit at the time was also navy, albeit a lighter shade than this new strip.
In fact I can now follow up on that Swedish away shirt with an actual picture
http://img519.imageshack.us/img519/123/fu1sn1001518c79op5.jpg
Nice work Jon…is that strip black though, not navy? Thats the problem with this trend for ‘dark’ kits; you can never tell exactly what colour they are!
I’ve got a number of different shots of this shirt but it is most certainly navy as this next pic shows.
http://img519.imageshack.us/img519/2451/fu1sn10021524c8dzb3.jpg
I still need to find some detailed real-life pictures of the shorts and socks though – the Swedish FA (SvFF) have yet to officially unveil the new kit in public.
Yep – its definitely navy – its a good looking outfit as well.
Hi there!
Does anyone know where I can see good pictures of all the official Euro 2008 socks?
I can find plenty of shirts, a few shorts, but absolutely no socks!
Any help would be much appreciated.
Thanks,
Tom 🙂
I like the fact that Puma are doing a lot more international kits. Nike’s designs over the last few years have been sub-standard. Adidas haven’t been too much better. I think countries should be sporting their national provider of kiots.
I think the following kits (in shirts/shorts/socks format) would be good – England: White, red cross/navy blue/white. Holland: Orange/white/royal blue (like their old national flag before the top stripe became red). Scotland: Dark blue, white saltire/white/black, red tops. Scotland change: Yellow & pink hoops/white/dark blue (like the old ‘Roseberry colours’ they once wore as a first kit). I like Austria changing to Red/white/red from White/black/white as this makes sense according to their flag. How about a change kit for Italy of: Green/white/red (copying their flag). Greece: Blue & white hoops/blue/white. I think Turkey should have stuck with their White, with red hoop first kit, and Red with white hoop away kit – this is much more less common than All red and All white. I also liked Rumania in Yellow/blue/red (their older style kit from the sixties and seventies.
There seem to be a few changes in the world of international football kits recently. It may be a nod to tradition but I think that Holland’s pale blue socks look terrible to be honest, although I do really like their new pale blue away kit. As some have said, the socks just look really badly mismatched in the home kit. That said, I’ve always preferred orange, white, orange as the Holland home combination (with black shorts if they are playing a team with white shorts)
I notice that France seem to favour all blue for this tournament rather than their traditional blue, white, red combo. I also believe that Italy will wear blue shorts even if there is no white shorts clash like last night against Holland, i.e. I’m under the impression they will still wear blue shorts against Romania even though there won’t be a “shorts clash”. This follows on from them favouring this all blue combo in Germany 2006 (perhaps they feel it’s lucky after winning that tournament – although not so lucky last night!)
Austria now playing in “home” red is also a big change. I grew up watching Krankl et al at the World Cup in white and black.
I also still can’t get used to seeing Germany in red away colours even though they have been wearing it for a few years now. To me, their changed kit should be green.
And Spain, when I were a lad (admittedly a long time ago) their colour combo was always red shirts, royal blue shorts, black socks. Not so keen on the navy shorts and socks.
I actually like the Puma kits best, although they are taking the mick a little with the puma logo on the chest AND both shoulders. In my opinion, however, they are more stylish than those made by Adidas (too uniform these days) and Nike (lovely kits in the early 2000s but poor designs in the past few years).
My favourite kit though, as always, is the Italian home one – always a classic and fairly simple design and a great shade of blue!
I could use a little help finding some Ranger replica socks for my youth Under-11 team. I need to find 30 matching pair of the Rangers home socks from between 2001-2006 ( the black socks, with the red tops, and the RFC logo). Please if you can direct me to a retailer or wholesaler my team would be quite grateful. Unfortunately JJB and the Rangersmegastore.com website were unable to help. Feel free to contact me at brettveatch@yahoo.com, if you can help.
Thanks in advance,
Brett
Hello Robin – I really like some of your kit ideas, especially the Scotland away. I’ve been thinking that the Roseberry colours would be a great idea for a Scotland away kit for some time as well. I’m also a supporter for flags/kits becoming more integrated. Cheers. John
Hello Rothko – great comments, I agree with some and disagree with others. I love the Dutch kit – I just think is so refreshing to see a variety of colour and imagination in a kit design, although how it will be ‘customised’ with different shorts/socks etc will remain to be seen. The Italian kits both look great in my opinion, although they seem to feature a curious fabric when you see them in the flesh. The away is particularly smart. And I love the Spanish colour combo – although not overly keen on the shirt design. Isn’t it interesting how international kits do have a certain mystique about them. Perhaps its the whole idea that they are foreign, exotic and sophisticated – plus that in the old days we were only really exposed to them every 2 years in either a World Cup or Euro championship. We didn’t follow them week in-week out. Consequently when you’ve grown up watching certain international teams in certain colours it does take a bit of getting used to when they change them around a bit.
The kit combinations have annoyed me as well in euro 2008 as much as Man Utd wearing white socks in europe forcing Chelsea to wear all blue because they won the toss, and pompy wear all blue in the fa cup final, although a pompy fan told me that this was a one off for charity.
Anyway back to euro 08 kits faults
1 Portugal again wearing red shorts instead of green like in euro 2004
2 France wearing all blue like the rugby team have started to do
3 Italy not wearing white shorts again it looks so much better
4 czech wearing all red,
5 swiss wearing all red then white shorts in 2nd match,
6 Austria doing the reverse of swiss forcing Poland to wear all white instead of red shorts. Why!
I like the dutch socks the away kit has white socks because they use pale blue for home. But you cant beat the old holland away kit which was a reverse of the home kit white orange white
I thought under Uefa rules you had to submit one home and one away kit for comp and only change parts if the clash.
Hello John, yes I agree, there is definitely much more of a mystique with international kits than with domestic ones.
Blanket exposure to just about every match that ever takes place around the world has let us see countries playing friendlies and qualifiers which we wouldn’t have seen 20+ years ago.
And Rob, I agree with just about every comment you make regarding faults at this year’s tournament. Portugal wearing red shorts rather than green is particularly annoying. I also prefer their deeper, burgundy/red shade rather than the standard cherry red they have reverted to again (although, in fairness this may be more traditional, I don’t know).
I’m really fed up watching the all blues v the all whites, and the all reds v the all whites. Christ its so damn dull watching Euro 2008 when you can;t tell one team from another in their boring one colour kits.
I first noticed this trend at the last world cup where in both semi finals it was all blue v all white, and then the same in the final.
I think in international football we need to keep to tradition.