The adidas Equipment era of the early 1990s was characterised by exuberant three-stripe branding but one exception was Turkey.
While their 1992 kits featured the new fabric pattern and v-neck (similar to the style adidas will use in 2020), bar the traditional horizontal stripe there were no extra details bar the socks.
Turkey wore their red change kit in both World Cup qualifiers against England, but their U18s played in white in the final of the European Championship as they lost to England, who wore the navy home shorts with red change shirts and socks.
However, having eschewed any standout design on these kits, seemingly the pay-off was that they had to go over the top for the rest of the decade, including a pair of styles we haven’t seen used by any other team.
For the Euro 96 qualifers, Turkey used a design which was similar to the adidas sideline wear of the time.
Then, having reached the finals in England, their home kit was a modified version of the Ireland away strip from the 1994 World Cup, while the alternative was a red edition of a common adidas offering from that summer.
In 1998, though, they once again deviated from the adidas norm. Grey was introduced to the palette as the classic adidas shoulder stripes were combined with a 1994 trope which saw them around the end of the sleeves. This was repeated on the shorts, making for the same effect that boxer Prince Naseem Hamed sported in the ring.
If that wasn’t enough, there were three hoops around the midriff too.
You’ll notice that the red stripes on the sleeves were housed in a grey panel and, rather than boxing that off on the long-sleeved shirts, instead adidas carried it to the cuffs.
Having qualified for a Euro 2000 play-off, Turkey overcame the Republic of Ireland to reach a second straight European Championship. There, and at the 2002 World Cup, they wore more mainstream adidas kits before switching to Nike in 2004 and they have sported the swoosh since then.
If Turkey was never leave Adidas, the home shirt that they would use nowadays will be a tribute to the used in Euro 96 qualifers
turkey (as they were known then?!) have always confused me as i am sure the white and red kits have have taken it in turns on numerous occasions as the home/first kits ? no way white was home kit all those years as red i swore was often worn at home matches?
Indeed it was pretty hard to decipher what Turkey’s actual first-choice colours were – they seemed to choose kits depending on what the oppoment usually wore, so for instance against a team with white shorts, they’d wear red at home. When they played England in two back-to-back qualifying campaigns for Euro ’92 and World Cup ’94 they wore red for each match.
It has only really since Nike took over as kit supplier in 2003 that red was established as first choice. I think the 2008 kits cemented that by using turquoise as a secondary colour for the white strip.
Would like to see Fenerbahçe jerseys!