You know that earlier this year I decided to restart this blog and put a focus on national teams. Given that the World Cup was about to be upon us, that was a very easy decision for me. And now with the Nations League and my time restrictions it is still a challenge to post regularly. Therefore, it is unlikely that I will go back to club jerseys any time soon. However, today is my birthday and for that reason I want to do something special. After all the Austria extravaganza yesterday, I just cannot go back to normal “programming”. For that reason, I went back to my jersey review videos for 2018-19 (links are below) and decided to post here all my favorite shirts of the European Club season. No long description, just the shirts and a short sentence. 🙂
Before we start, I run through the leagues/competitions in the order I covered them on my YouTube channel. To see my quick thoughts on each shirt simply click on it.
Let’s start in England in the Premier League:
AFC Bournemouth Home: Bold design, subtle use of gold and a sponsor the ties nicely to the color scheme
Chelsea FC Home: A fresh new design on the classic blue kit
FC Everton Home: simple, yet very classic look.
FC Liverpool Home: A classic look for a classic team
Manchester City Away: Probably my favorite Premier League jersey this year. I love the alternating pinstripes
Manchester United Third: best example for this Adidas template and a great job aligning the colors of the sponsor with the logos on the jersey
Tottenham Hotspur FC Home: I just love the navy accents on the white shirt. Even the gradient looks great!
For a full description of these and (most of) the other Premier League jerseys, watch my jersey review videos:
Now, next up is the league of the World Cup winners France:
Girondins de Bordeaux Third: wonderfl alternate look.
Caen Home: Nice re-interpretation of PSG 93-94 and Barcelona 17-18
Olympique Marseille Away: great use of light blue accents on a black shirt
OGC Nice Home: If Macron would make a Milan jersey it would look like this. Classic, classy, superb!
Nimes full set: I just love how the dragon from the crest is featured on the bottom of the shirt.
Stade Rennais Away: I love the pattern on the bottom on the jersey and the subtle red/black accents.
AS St. Etienne Away: Super nice look! Making the very best out of this classy template.
Toulouse Away: Even the many sponsors (all in one color) cannot distract from the modern look of this jersey.
Again, you can see full comments on these and all the other Ligue 1 jerseys in this playlist:
By now, you should know that Serie A is my favorite league and there are sooo many great shirts this season:
Atalanta Bergamo Home: Just a classic look!
US Cagliari Home: I love te half/half look and the colors. Also the sponsors tie in with the crest
FC Internazionale Away: Simple at first, but I love the half/half collar and the subtle snake skin pattern all over.
SS Lazio Home: Perfect Lazio look! They should wear this forever!
AC Milan Home: Puma issues a classic Milan shirt and eases my nerves about the supplier switch.
FC Parma Home: Yellow, blue, hoops! How great is that shirt?
AS Roma Home: Did you notice the chainmail pattern on this shirt? Roman legionnaires for sure!
US Sampdoria Away: What a clever way to incorporate the classic pattern on a super classy shirt.
US Sassuolo Away: Alternating pinstripes for the win!
Udinese Calcio Home: Nice way to add a touch of gold that ties in nicely with the crest.
That was just a small sampling. Watch all Serie A shirts in these videos:
Quick, let’s look at a few La Liga jerseys:
Real Betis Balompie Home: Super nice looking shirt!
Atletic Bilbao Home: Interesting reinterpretation of a classic shirt
Celta de Vigo Home: Only very subtle Adidas branding to make a great shirt.
RCD Espanyol Home: All shirts look great, but the home jersey paired with that sponsor is a beauty!
Girona Home: Diagonal striping? Unusual, but very much in tone with the crest!
UD Levante Home: The best Barcelna shirt of the past 5 years?
Real Madrid Home: Happy to have the black accents back and I love the neckline!
Real Sociedad Home: Macron delivers another really nice kit.
Real Valladolid Home: I love how the sponsor is made to fit in the clor scheme.
Even more jerseys right here:
So, here are my favorite Bundesliga jerseys this year:
Bayer 04 Leverkusen Away: Alternating diagonal pinstripes in reference to the 1988 UEFA Cup winning kit.
Borussia Dortmund Home: I love the black sleeves broken up by yello bands.
Mainz 05 Home: Simple, yet effective with two-tone red hoops.
Borussia M’Gladbach Third: Beautiful green shirt with nice texture.
VfB Stuttgart Third: All Stuttgart jerseys this season are great, but this one is probably the best!
SV Werder Bremen Third: Classic Werder look and I love the diamonds radiating from the crest.
Of course, I reviewed also all the Bundesliga jerseys:
Now, let’s go tho the Champions League and look at a few jerseys from teams not in the big 5 leagues.
AEK Third: Simple and classy!
AFC Ajax Home: You cannot mess with greatness and Adidas surely didn’t.
SL Benfica Home: Still this is a very modern yet classy interpretation of a classic strip.
Crvena Zvezda Third: Very smart away jersey using a dark blue base and still showcasing the club’s colors.
Galatasaray SK Away: I love how the half-half look from the home jersey is used here in the accents.
FC Porto Third: a very playful, yet beatiful shirt!
The full set of Champions League jerseys are critiqued in these videos:
And finally, let’s get a tad more exotic with the jerseys from the Europa League. Here are my favorites:
Celtic FC Away: tartan pattern and celtic cross, what’s not to like!
SK Slavia Home: iconic and beautiful
Fenerbahce SK Home: A nice Adidas version of a great kit.
Sporting CP Home: Macron delivers again.
Apollon Limassol Away: I love the texture on the shirt and the choice of colors! I look at it and imagine the sea!
Dynamo Kiev Away: Simple and wonderful like a classic jersey should be.
PAOK Home: Everything in black and white making for a very unified and solid look. Also, I love the collar!
And here I tried critique all Europa League jerseys:
Well, I hope you enjoyed this slightly different post. Let me know what are your favorite club jerseys this season and how you would rate the jerseys above.
After last year’s disaster away shirt, we see a return to a more traditional away shirt for Inter. I want to repeat myself, the last away shirt was actually well designed, but the choice of colors was definitely more Milan than Inter – hence disastrous. So, on to this year. Inter’s form curve is pointing slightly upward after a totally disappointing 2012/13 season. But it may need another season or two until the nerazzurri return to the Champions League – where they actually belong as one of Italy’s marquee teams (all rivalry aside).
The jersey has the same basic template as the home jersey, but is all white with a blue collar and black-blue sleeve trims. Blue is also the color chosen for both the swoosh and the sponsor, which gives blue a lot more weight here than black and does look a bit odd (especially since the sponsor has frequently been printed in black on earlier versions). Other than that, the front looks quite stylish and simple.
In keeping with the color scheme on the front, the numbers are also applied in blue, but with a black outline. Same goes for the player’s name. The font is nice and simple (actually only a few numbers look a bit odd).
I am happy to see the return to the “classic” white away jersey, although to my taste blue as a bit over-featured here. Some more black would have been nice. Still, as hard as it may be for me to say, Inter is beating Milan this season both on the pitch and the jerseys.
Let’s stay in Italy for a few posts and look at some other “big” teams there. You may already have gotten the idea that I like Italy and despite significant troubles as of late, Serie A is still the one league that gets me most excited. Hence, there is a certain Italian bias here. Still, there is also one Italian team that I do not fancy at all: Inter. But together with Juventus and Milan, Inter is one of the big three Italian teams and thus deserves regular posts on this blog.
Unlike Milan, Inter rarely had any extraordinary home shirts lately, meaning it is rather no-frills stuffs without crazy accents or designs. I believe that this is a good thing and this season we are treated with a very fine jersey. The black and blue stripes are of medium width (I like it) with a blue stripe down the middle. In my opinion, the black is a hue to light and looks more like navy, but this may be the picture also. The shirt has a black standing collar with a deep button down opening – we already said that this is the current fashion (i.e. France, Manchester United and Sevilla FC) and it really looks good here. I also like that the sleeves are striped with a black trim. The front is very well balanced and sponsor and swoosh are applied in white making for a traditional and nice looking color scheme.
Pretty much the same layout on the back. I think the names and numbers could look better without the blue outline, but it is not bad either. All looks very classic.
This is a really nice Inter jersey. Although the team are not as bad as last season, this jersey still would deserve a much bigger stage.
All club allegiances aside, I want this to be a blog about (at least in principle) every team on this planet and won’t leave out a team for the minor fault of not being a favorite of mine. This being my “Farewell Umbro” week, I also want to include some iconic club jerseys that Umbro produced. Over the past 20 years probably the most prominent team other than Manchester United that was equipped by Umbro was Inter in the early to mid-1990s. Looking over all the designs Umbro came up with during that period is actually quite interesting. First, they tried to use a lighter blue tone than previous jerseys, before going back to the classic deep blue that we are accustomed to when watching Inter. That color stayed around for a while, before the club’s crest (first used under Umbro) was moved to the center of the shirt. And I won’t mention that awful shirt Inter wore in the 1998 UEFA Cup final.
Right after the change to the darker blue and right before the move of the crest was exactly one season, where Inter actually had a jersey that can by all means be considered a classic one: the one worn during the 1995-96 season. However, the season was one to forget for Inter: eliminated by Lugano in the first round of the UEFA Cup, finishing 7th in Serie A and to add insult to injury crosstown rivals AC won the championship. It was Roy Hodgson‘s first season as Inter coach and Roberto Carlos‘s only season at Inter.
Crucially for everyone accustomed to see Inter, it was the club’s first season with Pirelli as sponsor (interesting detail: in the 1960s and 1970s Pirelli had very close ties with AC Milan). Therefore, the shirt does not look dated – even today. It features the very classic black-and-blue stripes which have appropriate width. The sleeves are also striped and are blue on the trim. In a way the sleeves seem a bit short, but that was the style in the 1990s. Most importantly, the shirt has a nice Polo-style collar in blue with black trims. This is the only thing I would have actually changed: I would have switched the colors to a black collar with blue trims. Also, it would have been nice to have the collar half blue half black and not two stripes at the end. While the sponsor is in white, I like that the Umbro logo is in gold since this is the main color on Inter’s crest (kinda odd isn’t it?). Maybe both could have been placed entirely within the black stripe, but it is somewhat OK the way it turned out here. ALso, I like that the sponsor is still not too huge. The back was pretty much like the front with white names and numbers in a nice classic style.
It was definitely not a jersey connected with Inter’s glory days, but I think this one has so many classic features that is somehow one of the best jerseys Inter has worn (at least in recent years). Just switch the colors on the collar and it would have been near perfect.
This will be a very controversial post. First of all, many outsiders will think that this is a beautifully crafted jersey. Second of all, this is a post about Inter – one of my least favorite teams – and I have not covered my second-most favorite team (you can take a guess), yet.
Inter is a team that has a somewhat established alternate jersey: white with black and blue accents. So, this red jersey is a total break from that. I give Nike the credit for creating a nice looking shirt. It is plain red and the black and blue trim on the sleeves does remind us that this is Inter. I also give Inter credit for having one of the longest sponsorship deals thus creating continuity. An Inter shirt without Pirelli is unthinkable (Irony: Pirelli was one of the main supporters of AC Milan in and before the 60s).
The back is much like the front, but I think the font has some quirky characters (like the 1 below), but is OK overall.
Frankly, if it was not Inter, I could find a lot of good things about this shirt. So, what do I not like? The color! First of all an away shirt is supposed to be a contrast to the home shirt. Having a black and blue home shirt calls for a light colored away shirt. Red does not do that. It was truly awkward to see Inter play in their red away jerseys at Tottenham, when the home jersey would have worked as well. Second, red is one of the main colors of Inter’s biggest rival! Imagine Barcelona playing in white or Celtic donning a blue jersey. To me this is unthinkable and unacceptable.
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