Portugal 3 Spain 3
The first draw of the tournament was a cracking game, with Cristiano Ronaldo scoring a hat-trick for Portugal, the equaliser a free kick late on.
They were in their home kit, which retained the red shorts and green socks from their successful Euro 2016 campaign. Goalkeeper Rui Patricio was in a black kit, but the sleeve pattern looked to be a cut-off long-sleeved version rather than the short-sleeved version which Saudi netminder Abdullah Al-Mayouf had.
Spain’s shirts were described as ‘halo blue’ by adidas but looked like washed-out white in practice. The pattern takes it cues from that used by the Netherlands at Euro 88. Like the rest of the adidas nations, their match inscription was in English whereas Portugal’s was in Portuguese.
Morocco 0 Iran 1
A late own goal saw Iran take victory. As well as their crest, the Asian side had a small circular cheetah logo beneath the necks of their shirts – previously, this had featured as an imprint but this kit was catalogue teamwear.
In fact, their white adidas Tabela template was an reverse of Morocco’s – the north African country’s kit release had been delayed so as not to give much time to counterfeiters to produce their versions.
It was the third game in a row for the blue Adipro goalkeeper shirt to feel, accompanied by its orange colleague.
Egypt 0 Uruguay 1
You are Fifa, and you have a black-sock clash to deal with. Do you tell Egypt to change to red-white-white or red-white-red, or get Uruguay to wear sky blue-black-sky blue? No, you do not.
You summon the spirit of 1990 and make Uruguay wear white against red opponents, but that creates a shorts-clash so Egypt have to don their away set.
Oh, and the white text under the World Cup logo doesn’t show up great on a yellow referee’s shirt.
Russia 5 Saudi Arabia 0
The hosts began on a great note, recording the biggest win in an opening game.
Like so many other adidas teams, they have been given retro stylings, though oddly the design it references was only used by the USSR at the 1988 Olympics. Blue doesn’t feature on the shirt or shorts but is relatively prominent on the socks, helping to create a Russian flag effect. The team’s shirts also featured a small inscription with game details between the adidas logo and crest.
Saudi Arabia’s home kit is all-white so there was a shorts-clash to solve but, rather than wearing white-green-white, they wore their entire change kit, despite the fact that Fifa have been reluctant to allow red shirts v green shirts in the past.
When the away shirt was launched, the ‘KSA’ below the crest was in white, but now it’s dark green. The plainness and the simple number font give it something of an ‘unlicensed team from Pro Evo‘ look.
Both goalkeepers wore their respective kit-makers’ primary templates.
It’s not that odd – the USSR actually won those Olympics, beating Brazil in the final. The last hurrah of a great football team. Makes sense that they’d want to remind people of those glory times.
I much preferred the Russia shirt for the Confederations cup – the white detailing on this one looks a bit too much like Teamwear.