Been watching the latest friendlies and not sure whether to larf or barf at some of the ridiculous kits the national sides are sporting.
Is this the worst ever period in the history of football kits?
England can step to the front of the catwalk with that gawdawful, testosterone-sapping mishmash that Nike have clad them in. Wouldn't scrub the hubcaps with those.
It might work if the socks matched the pale blue shoulders.Maybe go with darker blue trim and shorts. France and Holland aren't far behind, using the same template. All Nike products, all horribly designed.
And to think that all week we've been treated to images of Cruyff in those classic 'Clockwork Orange' kits from the '70s.
To be fair to Nike, they got it right with Portugal's double green away kit. Similar template as the above examples, but tasteful use of colours, balanced design. The home kit pooches it with red shirt and shorts and green socks. Bleaahh!
And the Turks' works:
adidas are no saints with their efforts. Belgium have an away kit that manager Marc Wilmots likens to a 'cycling shirt'. No wonder these guys look so unhappy.
Amends were made with this sharp home kit.
Northern Ireland suffer a reverse fate with a fine away shirt...
...but an utterly gauche home version, gussied up with pointless blue shoulders and chest stripe. Training shirts is what they look like.
'Zlatan doesn't do bullschit marketing' seems to be the message in this seething image of a pretty lame away shirt better suited to a debating contest than a football match. Is there a matching cardigan?
I would do the hubcaps with this one:
The award for pointless banality goes to the Russian away kit which has the national crest enlarged and sublimated. I keep thinking there's a hidden image of Bob Marley in there. In case you didn't see it properly on the players' chests:
Even more galling is the presence of 'pre-match' shirts. The Russians must have been inspired by a snow drift for the away one. The home version would be so much more diabolical if it used the Cyrillic alphabet - or added 'Sneaky' and 'Furkin' ':
But nothing crosses the boundaries of poor taste like the upchuck Spain will sport with their away kits. Oops. Plop. Fetch the mop.
Puma get cheeky with the Czechs in their rude, red crotch referencing home kits:
But showed good taste in giving Italy this clean, stylishly simple home kit. Capolavoro!
And stayed on form with a classy away kit. Now
that's a spicy meatball!
Conversely, they channelled all the 'boring, boring Arsenal' they could salvage from Philip Senderos and produced this miss for the Swiss. Number 8 there is trying to give it back.