Great one-offs – Bayern Munich ‘Humanrace’, 2021

In 2020, adidas announced a collaboration with musician Pharrell Williams, whereby notable historical kits from its top-tier contracts were reimagined in a hand-drawn style.

Dubbed ‘Humanrace’, the range features modern versions of the Arsenal ‘bruised banana’ and Manchester United ‘Madchester’ shirts, but they were only worn in pre-match warm-ups. However, the Real Madrid, Juventus and Bayern Munich shirts have now all appeared in senior matches, the latter the most recent in Wednesday night’s DFB-Pokal (German Cup) game against Kiel.

While supporter pressure led Bayern to announce in 2018-19 that future home shirts would only be red and white, their Humanrace shirt is based on the 1991-93 home strip, which saw blue feature as a prominent colour for the first time in more than a decade.

Bayern’s women’s and reserve teams had worn the kit before Wednesday’s second-round tie. Aside from the intentional unclean lines and paint spatters, it was a pretty good representation, though with a different cut compared to the original batwing style. However, while Humanrace socks are available to buy, Bayern wore the regular home set.

The backs of the Humanrace shirts had the Bayern players’ surnames below the number, as usual (except for European games) but the club name was absent from the upper area – there isn’t any DFB-Pokal rule against this, so we’re sure why it happened, especially as the blue stripes were curtailed. It meant that the shirts were, in effect, a tribute to the 1991-92 European shirts.

In 1991-92, Bayern lost in the second round of the cup to lower-ranked side Homburg, and, while they overcame Borussia Neunkirchen in the 1992-93 first round, they exited the competition with defeat to Borussia Dortmund. It was a case of third-time unlucky against Kiel, with the 2.Bundesliga side progressing after a penalty shootout.