The Poll

Looks like Brazil has taken a clear lead in our poll about the best national team kit. It's too bad there can only be five choices. Here's why I included the ones I did:

1. Argentina – An iconic shirt. The shirt of Maradona. For an Argentinian player, wearing the shirt of Argentina is the highest honor attainable. This is also the case all over the world of course, but for the Argentinian the feeling is more intense. On an aesthetic level, the albiceleste shirt is quite beautiful, and the black shorts provide that dynamic contrast. I prefer the shirt when it is not mucked up by those black sleeve stripes, but I have a feeling those will be staying for a while. A splendid kit.

2. Brazil – The kit of the beautiful game. Bright and colorful, Brazil's uniform symbolizes creativity and a joy for the game that is unparalleled. There are a total of four colors represented on the kit(yellow, blue, green, white) coinciding with the colors on the Brazilian flag.

3. Italy – The kit of catenaccio. Perhaps the most feared of all kits, opponents know when facing the Azzuri(especially in important matches), it will be a very difficult match. Curiously, the blue in the shirt does not appear in the Italian flag, they are one of the few national sides that does this. According to footnote #1 here, Italy has been wearing blue shirts since their third ever international match as a tribute to the Royal House of Italy, whose color is also blue. The Italians have always kept their kit very simple and they were one of the last national sides to put the manufacturer's logo on the shirt. They had no logos on the shirt as late as World Cup '98. You gotta love that.

4. Spain – While Spain has not had a lot of success on the pitch, at least they have looked quite good failing. The red and yellow shirt along with the blue shorts is a great combination. I personally prefer when they use the more royal blue short as a opposed to a navy blue short.

5. Other – Of course we had to have this option to encompass all the other great national team shirts. Some of the best of the rest:

England – especially when they use red as the color for the name and numbers.

Holland – that orange shirt is just so unique, so recognizable.

Scotland – I always liked the dark blue shirts of the scots(I particularly like this version of the kit). As a kid, I found it interesting that when Scotland would play, the referee would wear a different color than black for his kit. Of course, that is an obsolete idea by now.

What do you think? Am I missing anything?

Cafu's Mistake

There was a funny development in the Italian Serie A match between my beloved AC Milan and Parma this past Saturday. I was watching the match live, and I noticed that AC Milan's Brazillian right–back Cafu was wearing the wrong color socks. Most of you know that along with their famous red–and–black striped shirt, Milan interchange between black or white socks and shorts. The traditional Milan kit is made up of the red/black striped shirt, white shorts, and black socks. They change it around on occasion depending on the kit of the other team. Against Parma on Saturday the team came out in white shorts and socks, except for Cafu of course. The picture above is from the pre-match introduction, and Cafu didn't change his socks until a corner kick stoppage in about the 10th minute. Can it really be that no one noticed in the pre–match warm–up? Or had his white socks simply gone missing for a while? It's hard to believe the latter, since a team like Milan surely has dozens of extra socks on hand. Either way, a player of Cafu's reputation gets a pass from footballkitblog on this faux pas.

A Fitting Tribute

In yesterday's FA Premier League match between Manchester United and Manchester City, both teams paid tribute to the victims of the 1958 Munich Air Disaster by wearing kits from that era complete with no sponsors. I wasn't sure how this was going to look on the pitch, but the results that you can see in these pictures were simply breathtaking, especially for Manchester United.