Argentina (Home 2011-13)

I agree, my blog has been very Euro-centered so far. Also, I have not commented on three former World champions, yet. So let’s correct a bit for that and look at Argentina today. The Albiceleste are currently among the biggest underachievers having not reached a World Cup semifinal since 1990 despite featuring some of the world’s best talent and usually playing highly attractive soccer. Argentina is also notable for being one of the few nations (otherwise only Paraguay comes into mind) to feature a striped home jersey. The current version has been issued for the 2011 Copa America and (unusual these days) is already worn for the third year in a row.

The jersey is reminiscent in many ways of a classic Argentina jersey, although it should have more stripes: Currently, there are three light blue ones and two white ones; the classic design has 5 and 4 respectively. But despite this slight break with tradition, the jersey does indeed lo0k quite nice. It has a white shirt collar (something I always like) the three stripes are in white, as are the two bands towards the end of the sleeves. The latter probably should have been the same width all around the sleeve – it does look a bit awkward. The Adidas logo is located on the central stripe, leaving the number and the crest for the two white stripes. Usually, I do prefer the number to be centered, but since crest and number are about the same size, it does look OK. I am not too crazy about the black shield hosting the crest, but it does make the crest stand out a bit more than on previous jerseys.

The back has the same striped pattern as the front, which is somewhat surprising. However, since both are light colors and the numbers are applied in black, not a bad choice. I do like it when striped teams also wear the stripes on the back. Below the color there is a golden band showing with a small vertical Argentinian flag. The font is modern and legible, but I find it looking a bit too small. I also think the white outline around the number is not necessary.

Adidas did a good job on this one – much better than on the 2010 one – and delivered a very nice jersey.

My rating: 8/10 stars.

How do you rate this shirt?