Germany (Home 2004-05)

After the fluke final appearance in 2002, many people thought that things were alright in Germany. Well, not exactly. While important steps to a brighter future were already initiated, EURO 2004 did not go according to plan. A respecable and somewhat unlucky draw against the Dutch was followed by a goalless draw to Latvia (!!!) and unbelievably a loss to a second string Czech team. Again losing to a second string team! Thus, coach Rudi Völler stepped down despite not receiving much blame and the DFB installed a comission to find a new coach. Somewhat surprisingly the choice was Jürgen Klinsmann with assistance from Jogi Löw. Introducing many new modern concepts and more importantly a new philosophy concerning the style of play, things started to look brighter at the 2005 Confederations Cup, but still many friendlies brought disappointing results. Still, the seed for a more successful era was laid exactly in this period. However, the shirt worn in this period pointed more to a less succesful recent past:

To me it is a bit mind-boggling how this jersey resembles resembles the one for EURO 2000. A white shirt with the upper side of the sleeves being very dark, this time a solid black and a white collar, this time a V-neck. However, we have more distinct German flag elements this time around by adding a red triangle and an even smaller yellow one below the black. Other than that things are relatively straightforward: Adidas logo to the right, front number centered (see below) and black eagle on the right. There are some updated, though: the roundel housing the eagle has now a black red and yellow bars towards its bottom and the three stars are now golden as with other nations displaying them. This jersey also had net holes to show the integrated undershirt, but it was not visible thanks to the undershirt being white.

 

The back is quite straightforward with only black and white showing. The name and number are applied in almost the same style as in 2002 and still features the holes. Given what was to come in terms of Adidas fonts, this was actually a quite nice font choice. Still, I would have preferred an upright number over an italicized one.

The black shorts worn with this kit were rather plain with the exception of similar triangles to the bottom as seen on the underarms, thus having an additional, albeit unncessary German flag element.

Well, overall this one is very comaptible with the one for 2000. I like the German flag elements on the sleeves better than the grey top, but then the collar in 2000 was nicer. On the bright side, the collar here is all white in contrast to many other 2004 shirts that had odd looking torpedo openings. Still, rather non-traditional, but not too bad. So, same score:

My rating: 5/10 stars.

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