2007/2008 kits: An assessment

Now is the time of the year that clubs all over Europe release their new shirts for the upcoming season. I'm sure many of the die-hard football kit enthusiasts have already seen some of the designs that have popped up on the web and are slowly being introduced on the pitch. There have been some interesting designs, and I think the time is right for a report:

Some of the Worst - Let's start with the bad news. I think that Man. United's new home shirt is classy enough, but last year's shirt was nice and simple too, in fact, very similar to the new design. So why fleece your supporters so disgracefully by changing kits after just one season? It's just so unnecessary and anyone who buys both of those shirts is a sucker. Tottenham Hotspur released some really smart designs, but they should have kept their gorgeous brown shirt(trust me they looked better in action) , which was only in use for one season. Not that Arsenal's new designs aren't nice, it's just that they are a little boring for a team that has had some great kits. At least all of these teams have not fallen victim to those awful templates that are the bane of football shirt design. It's depressing how many teams and goalkeepers have that squiggly thing on their shirts.

Barça's new away shirt is pretty bad. The greens used are ugly, which is the main problem with the shirt. Sevilla keeps insisting on that putrid fuschia outfit(although that white shirt with the red slash looks pretty sharp). Borussia Dortmund's new home shirt looks OK in pictures, but I'm sure in on the pitch they will make the players look like giant bumblebees, not a good thing.

However the most disappointing development is over at my beloved AC Milan. that home shirt is really bad. It just breaks my heart because Milan haven't had a decent home shirt for years now. The new number font is bad too. A club as great as Milan doesn't have to resort to that futuristic B.S. Mr. Berlusconi needs to fire someone for this fiasco.

On a funny aside, this disgusting thing reminds me of the Islanders (of the National Hockey League) "Fishstick Guy" design in hockey.

The Best - While adidas continues to try to make all clubs around the world look the same, there are some good designs that stand out, mostly from other manufacturers. Inter's new centenary shirt is really nice. Parma also looks good in the same design. I also like the new Manchester City designs. Real Madrid kept it simple as always. while Chelsea took a bold step in color. Very loud yes, but I'm not sure I don't like it. And boy do those new Premier League numbers look snazzy. And with the way the match up with the font of the Premier League wordmark means teams in England just took a major step up sartorially. All in all not a groundbreaking year for kit design but things can always be worse I suppose.

football kit blog Update: Khalid Boulharouz was loaned away from Chelsea, which means we no longer have to put up with the uncomfortable sight of seeing a defender wearing number 9. Now if only William Gallas would be so kind as to oblige.

David Beckham Will Wear 23 at LA Galaxy

There's been no official announcement yet, but it looks like David Beckham will wear #23 on the LA Galaxy. I was perusing through their team shop and noticed that they are already selling a t-shirt with "BECKHAM 23" on it. I must say that the new LA kits are classy and I'm glad that adidas didn't use that horrible squiggly template.

Preview of Premiership's New Names & Numbers

It looks like England's Premier League will launch their new name & number system on May 15th. I found this neat graphic illustrating the change, which I definitely think is a huge step forward. The new numbers are a lot more sleek than the previous version. The change also addresses one big problem with the old font, which was that the 1 and the 7 looked very similar. Kudos to England, I think these numbers look so good, I'm willing to overlook for the time being that England doesn't have an "open" shirt number policy. I'm strongly in favor of teams being able to choose their own fonts, but I also believe there needs to be some regulations and oversight so the disaster that Sevilla FC has been this season can be avoided at all costs.

Before the Advent of Squad Numbers

Many of you know that in the old days, football teams didn't use the squad numbering system that is in use now. For those of us that did know, bear with me on this.

In the old days (probably around pre-1993), football clubs would name a starting eleven, then assign the numbers 1-11 to those eleven players. Then the substitutes would get assigned the numbers 12-16. As an example, this was Milan's staring eleven on Wednesday, March 7 2007 against Glasgow Celtic in the Champions League:

1 Dida

25 Daniele Bonera

3 Paolo Maldini

44 Massimo Oddo

23 Massimo Ambrosini

8 Gennaro Gattuso

22 Kaka

18 Marek Jankulovski

21 Andrea Pirlo

10 Clarence Seedorf

9 Filippo Inzaghi

Milan's lineup would have looked something like this in the old days:

1 Dida

2 Daniele Bonera

3 Paolo Maldini

4 Massimo Oddo

5 Massimo Ambrosini

8 Gennaro Gattuso

10 Kaka

6 Marek Jankulovski

7 Andrea Pirlo

11 Clarence Seedorf

9 Filippo Inzaghi

Certain star players would always remain the same number, but other less established players would get assigned different numbers throughout the season. Generally, the goalkeeper would be number 1, the defenders would get 2 through 5, midfielders 6, 8, & 10, and attackers 7, 9, & 11.

The beginning of the end of the "1 through 11" system was the World Cup and other international competitions, where players were assigned a number for the whole "finals" tournament. Finally sometime in the 90's all the leagues switched to the fixed squad number system. While I have no major problem with the current system, I kind of miss the old days of looking in the match summary and seeing which players got what numbers. For Milan I remember seeing Van Basten mostly wear 9 but he also came off the bench wearing 16. I also don't like how some players are choosing to stand out by wearing high numbers. Case in point Ronaldo with Milan, and Francesco Coco(No pictures available, but he wears #77 or 76). Those numbers just don't look right on a soccer jersey. Keep the shirt numbers low, fellas. Also, clubs are starting to retire numbers, leaving less and less single digits and low numbers available. I think that is ridiculous. We never used to retire numbers in football, why are we starting now? What, are going to start going back and retiring numbers retroactively? Should Santos now retire Pele's 10, or Real Di Stefano's 9? No disrespect to Gianluca Pessotto, whose number 7 was retired by Juventus. But if he deserves that, then there is a list a mile long of players that deserve the same honor. If we don't get this situation under control, we will no longer have any good numbers left. Even stranger is this development of defenders getting numbers usually reserved for attacking players. Like Gallas wearing number 10 at Arsenal and Boulahrouz wearing 9 at Chelsea.

I like seeing who will be Brazil or Argentina's new number 10. So let's keep the squad numbering system because it is pretty useful, but let's do away with this number retiring business. If only it where that easy.

For more information on this topic, check out this page.