Midweek Mashup – Turkey, Euro 2016

After Arsenal in navy shorts last week, another modern example of a team forced to switch up their kit with other elements. This time it’s a two-for-one, as we look at Turkey’s amendments to their away kit at Euro 2016.

At Euro 2008, one group featured four teams with red kits and this time round Group D was similar, with Spain, Croatia, Czech Republic and Turkey all drawn together, meaning that every game was a colour-clash.

Turkey’s first game was against Croatia, and they wore their red and black home kit, which featured diamonds reducing in size down the shirt, giving a fade effect. Their opponents played in their attractive two-tone blue checked shirts, which they would use for all three group games (having impressed in reaching the knockout stages, they would then lose to Portugal while wearing their home).

Incidentally, blue against red would seem to go against UEFA’s own clashing rules, but the last two finals have seen such a match-up, with no problems.

Turkey lost that game 1-0, making their next outing against Spain very important. As the away team, Turkey had to change to their away shirts, in the same style as the home but in white and turquoise (the name of the mineral comes from French, so christened as it was first brought to Europe from Turkey).

However, the turquoise shorts were deemed to clash with Spain’s blue pairs, so the black home set was used in a 3-0 loss, which eliminated Turkey.

At first glance, it might appear that the socks are also non-native, but they were in fact the proper away socks, Turkey – like so many others – suffering from Nike’s desire to mismatch socks with their Vapor template. Given that the away strip was designed to be worn against teams who play in red, having that colour so prominent wasn’t hugely clever from a clashing point of view.

Of course, it wasn’t hugely clever from a practical point of view, either – most teams in red shirts also have red socks, with Spain being a rare exception.

Turkey’s final game was against the Czech Republic, who used to wear white shorts and blue socks but were in all-red for the European Championship. It meant another alteration to the away kit, with the home black socks used this time as a 2-0 win at least meant that bottom place in the group was avoided.

The strangest thing about the used of the black socks with the away kit, however, was that Turkey had a bespoke white alternative set, worn in pre-Euro 2016 friendlies against Austria and Montenegro.

Did they think that they were only allowed to bring two sets of shirts, two sets of shorts and two sets of socks? They were mistaken if so, as Albania wore three shirts, Belgium three different shorts styles and Portugal three types of socks.

They haven’t had to wear the away kit yet in their 2018 World Cup qualifiers, but, incidentally, when they met Croatia in their first game, both countries were allowed to wear their home kits.