Adidas Is Ruining Football

Adidas has been ruining the game from an aesthetic point of view. I know they have been a pioneer in football kit design for many years, but recently they have been coming out with some awful designs. Then they exacerbate the problem by using these crappy designs as templates that they use for many different teams around the world. Let's be honest a lot of these shirts look like training shirts. I mean it's friggin' ridiculous. They are taking all these football federations and clubs for granted. I mean some kid at Parson's could come up with something better than this crap. Say what you want about Nike, they were innovative this past world cup by ditching the templates and giving each team their own identity. The other major kit manufacturer is using templates. Templates, templates, templates. It's like if you are an Adidas-supplied team, you're getting one of 3 templates and maybe if you're lucky they'll embellish it a little bit. If you agree with me, leave a comment and hopefully someone at Adidas will read this and get the message. You are dressing some of the greatest teams in all of sport. Give them their own individuality. And not every single shirt has to have those damn stripes running down the sleeves. And if you do have to put the stripes on there, they don't always have to be contrasting. I've seen regular Adidas gear where the stripes are not contrasting and that looks pretty cool. Sometimes the best type of branding and marketing can be subtle.

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.

Digging in the Vaults: Atletic Bilbao Centenary Shirt

This little number is the Athletic Bilbao centenary shirt from 1998. I really like this shirt, I know it's really loud, but I don't really care. Bilbao's Basque-only policy is pretty admirable and they are one of only 3 clubs in Spanish football (the others being Real Madrid and Barcelona) that have never been relegated (that is in jeopardy at the moment). Perhaps best of all, they are one of a few clubs that don't wear any ads on their jersey. I hope they stay in the Primera Liga so that the no-ads policy can continue. I'm sure that if the club loses the revenue of not being in the top flight, they might compensate by getting a sponsor for their shirt.

The jersey is made by Kappa, whose male/female logo is pretty cool. Their logo is sewn on the right chest as well as running up and down the sleeves. The shirt is also a departure from the usual Bilbao home shirt, which has red and white vertical stripes. There is a huge dragon-like logo on the front of the shirt, and the back looks like the the back of the dragon if you look at it from the right angle. On the back of the shirt is the name and number of Bilbao stalwart Joseba Etxeberria. To top it off there's a special logo commemorating the centenary on the collar placket. This article says that Bilbao also had a second Centenary shirt in 2004, which looked like this. Not sure how they can have two centenaries but I have to say that second one is pretty hideous.

Catalan Controversy

There was an interesting football kit related incident in last week's international friendly between Spain and Latvia. It seems that two players on Spain's team, Xavi and Carles Puyol, turned the top of their socks inside to hide the trim which is the color of the Spanish national flag. Xavi (#8) and Puyol (#5) are both from Catalonia, which is fiercely proud of being an "Autonomous community" within Spain. In this article, Xavi says that the suggestion that he and Puyol did this deliberately as a show of Catalan unity is to start a "ridiculous and malicious debate(s)." The photo from the match above shows that this has to be more than a coincidence. I personally dig it, and if Catalonia really is autonomous , UEFA should let their national team, which already plays friendlies, to play full internationals. It would be interesting to see how an all-Catalan team would do on the international scene.

This is Rumored to Be...

...The much-anticipated new LA Galaxy shirts. The image circulating on the web seems to be legit enough, if not it's a very good fake. The logo is another matter entirely as it does look somewhat amateurish. So who knows, we will just have to wait and see how this plays out. I wonder if Becks has any imput?

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.