Midweek Mashup – Olympique Marseille, 2007

• Thanks to Jay from Design Football for making us aware of this one.

The idea of designating a third kit as the primary change strip in European competition has been around for a decade or so, but in France and Germany, some clubs went a step further and lined out in sometimes alien colours in continental home games.

One such example was Olympique Marseille, who launched this strip in the summer of 2007.

The shirt was used for five of their six of Champions League group games, home and away against Besiktas and Porto and at home to Liverpool but before that campaign started, it was called into action on the opening day of the Ligue 1 season for the trip to Strasbourg.

Marseille’s away kit that season was sky blue and white stripes, pretty much identical to the Strasbourg home but as the home team had sky blue shorts too, it meant a deviation on the third kit.

No alternative orange set had arrived but, rather than using the home white shorts, Marseille came up with a creative solution.

The third kit had a complementary navy goalkeeper strip with orange and blue trim and, somehow, they were able to source 16 sets of the shorts and socks (despite being unnecessary, as the lighter blue could have been worn).

By November, the ‘real’ alternatives were in the kit room and they saw action in the game away to Porto.