The Champions League semi-finalists will be decided this week as the quarter-final second legs are played.
From a kit point of view, our biggest question was what Tottenham Hotspur would wear for their trip to the Etihad Stadium to face Manchester City on Wednesday.
Last week in London, City wore their Double Decker-style third kit, as they had at Wembley in the Premier League. However, as City often change without compulsion, we couldn’t be sure that the same would apply.
That is the case, though – presumably Uefa have concerns with the white/navy mix that would result from Tottenham wearing their home strip.
Spurs will line out in their ‘Neptune Green’ and ‘Armory Navy’ kit, which is the third strip domestically but the first-choice change outfit for Europe. As City have navy home socks, Spurs will wear the grey change set, also seen at Southampton. In addition, the match officials will wear red/pink socks with their black shirts and shorts.
Spurs are also away to City in the league this weekend, but like Liverpool at Arsenal in 2008, we would expect either the home or away kit to be worn.
Beyond that, things are straightforward this week. Liverpool will wear their home kit away to Porto, Manchester United will be in pink for their game in Barcelona and Ajax will use their black change kit against Juventus, whose home kit has sufficient quantities of white to avoid any confusion.
I’ve never understood referees to changing their socks in an otherwise all-black kit. Why not just wear the red shirt instead? It would be much more distinguishable from both teams, and nobody is going to confuse Spurs’ orange goalkeeper kit with the referees. Interesting how the PL turns a blind eye to goalkeeper and referee kit clashes but UEFA is extremely picky about it.