As a little taster for a more in depth review of a selection of 10-11 season kits that will be coming shortly I thought I’d just feature the new adidas Liverpool home kit for 2010-12 (yes, two seasons!!) The strip was one of the earliest to be involved a few months ago and despite being slightly underwhelmed the design (like most of adidas’ recent strips actually) has really grown on me. Its a design that just screams “Liverpool” despite the arrival of new sponsors Standard Chartered who replace the old familiar Carlsberg. The shirt features a simple crew neck devoid of any trim and a diamond shadow pattern clearly inspired by the club’s 1989-91 silver away kit that was worn in the last season Liverpool won the title. No coincidence there I’m sure. The shorts are virtually identical to the previous kits with the exception of a very subtle piece of gold piping that also features on the shirt. Nice to see a third colour back on the Red’s kit. The Liver Bird still doesn’t return as the club’s badge on the kit but it does crop up in gold on the socks.
In my view its a good, solid looking kit and it will be interesting to see if the new kit, sponsor and most importantly manager, will bring Liverpool some good fortune this season.
Have to agree with you about the adidas kits this year, the majority have been disapointing with too many templates.
Their Liverpool range is probably their best efforts other then the Bayern Munich away shirt which is my favourite so far.
It’s strange that on certain shirts the sponsors logo has a very important part to play. The Liverpool shirt for me has always been defined by it’s sponsor. While for me, Standard Charter is not as immediately iconic as Hitachi, Crown Paints, Candy or Carlsberg it could have been a lot worse.
The strip itself is nice and simple, although I’m still not to sure about the gold piping. As with all the recent Adidas designs the three stripes break on the sleeves still really annoys me. I know why they do it, but it doesn’t stop me longing for the non broken old school look. While I’m talking about old school, It has always been my wish that one day Adidas would re-introduce the original trefoil logo on their football shirts. This classic logo and football just seems right!
Cheers,
Willie
the adidas trefoil,fantastic.
I always liked the grey diamond away kit, and I love that the subtlety of the design has been brought back. It may take a little while for the new sponsor to seem normal after nearly 15 years with Carlsberg. Nice kit though and a bit different from the current adidas crop.
If the tre-foil was brought back, I hope it wouldn’t mean those tight shorts as well…lol.
Liverpool needs to return to the old liver bird badge and adidas needs to return to the trefoil (can’t see them not going back at all with the “retro” being such a big theme nowadays).
The trouble with keeping the same kit manufacturer is the sameyness of the kits. Realistically the shorts and socks have not changed from Aug 2006 through to May 2012.
I hoped the three stripes on the shirt would be in red. Look at the New Zealand Rugby union shirts, the first XV shirt has non contrasting stripes on the sleeve.
Totally agree Andrew. Its the same with Chelsea’s kits – the shorts and the socks have hardly changed. If club’s persist with one-season kits (although Liverpool’s is two) notable differences have to be included. Good idea about the non-contrasting three stripes – I guess due to Liverpool’s high profile adidas don’t want to lose that element.
Andrew- the NZ rubgy shirts actually has no stripes at all. Similarly to the Panathinaikos centenary shirt from 2008 which (if my memory serves well) was rejected had to be re-worked to a version without stripes: http://www.football-shirts.co.uk/images/0809/panathinaikoscentenary.jpg
Juro – Maybe not the current one but I had one myself a few years ago with 3 black stripes
Personally, I’m not a fan of the adidas trefoil. It was before my time, and thus I never felt any great attachment to it.
Whilst I think the new Liverpool kit is nice enough, I can’t help but feel that too often adidas kits resemble templates, even with the odd unique design flourishes. The solution to this is to do away with the three stripes on the odd design. Why not? Everyone knows who adidas are. The exposure of supplying big teams should be sufficient.
I too would love to see the return of a prominent Liver bird in Liverpool’s badge…the current crest is too overblown…get rid of the wording at the top of the shield (move it to the scroll) and make the bird bigger…
Would also like to see the adidas trefoil make a return, though I don’t think they would as they like to keep it for their Originals line…
I do like this kit though…nice to see more 80s style shiny shirts coming back into fashion…scrap all this retro cotton nonsense and get back to good old 100% polyester with a reflection coefficient of 96%! 🙂
a “reflection coefficient of 96%!”, love it!!! Nice one Rich
the ajax shirts never have the 3 stripes on them,why?
Their first adidas kits in 00-01 did but the fans kicked up a fuss, now they only have them in Europe
In past 2 seasons the Ajax shirts have stripes:
http://www.sportsdirect.com/adidas-ajax-home-shirt-2010-2011-379253
http://www.sportsdirect.com/adidas-ajax-home-shirt-2009-2010-379244
Ajax insisted that at first, there were no three stripes at all, but were talked round by adidas. in the early days of the contract, there were kits with the 3 stripes removed for matches, and the replica shirts had the three stripes on.
Adidas have a hell of a job designing new kits for Ajax, as they tend to all look the same. Personally, I think that Ajax are one of those teams that have such a classic kit that its impossible to improve upon or make it look different.
The new Liverpool kit is okay, but thats all. It just does not have the same impact and aura as kits in the past have had, and I think its the Liver bird (or lack thereof) thats the problem.
The three stripes being broken does not look that good, and I know the new UEFA regulations, but surely they could have worked around it a bit better?
River Plate got their three stripes unbroken, and their shirt is one of the best and most 80s Ive seen in ages.
http://www.footballshirtculture.com/10/11-kits/river-plate-2010-2011-adidas-home-football-shirt.html
And they have a two year shirt. It just seems a shame that all these nice kits are only going to be used for one year and a new one comes along, most of the time not as good or the same as the one replaced
For example
http://www.footballshirtculture.com/10/11-kits/palmeiras-1011-adidas-kits.html
seems a shame that its just going to be used for half of one season, state championship, then half of another season before being replaced, before given a chance to become iconic. Most football shirts deserve better than that (Im I personalizing football kits too much?)
are we having a post to discuss the new seasons kits john?
Hello John – definitely. My plan now is to post the kits club by club for comments etc and then post them all in a new 10-11 page. I’ll start getting some up tonight…
I recently had this shirt brought from England for me, and although I love the red-ness of it, the broken stripes and the somewhat bizarre sleeves bring the shirt down for me, the charcoal and white away kits are the better efforts from adidas before the move to Warrior
Does anyone have high expectations of Warrior, blank canvas as far as football is concenred I guess and I know New Balance used to make boots – maybe an opportunity to revist the badge and go back to a classic all red, white collar sliock look of the 70s & 80s?
I’ve seen a few Warrior mock-ups that I really liked and some of their leisure wear is quite subdued so hopefully they won’t try to be too spectacular. Fingers are definitely crossed.