
In November 2020, Arsenal goalkeeper Bernd Leno created Premier League history in the Gunners’ game against Wolverhampton Wanderers as he wore the club’s change shirt (and alternative off-white shorts) between the posts.
While this is a relatively common trope on the continent – and was practised as far back as the 1990s by Mexico’s Jorge Campos – it was the first time it had happened in the English top flight. This season, Arsenal have officially registered their yellow away kit as the third-choice goalkeeper option.
Another goalkeeper-kit philosophy that we like is when the custodian’s kit uses the same colour-scheme as his team-mates but in a different ratio, as was seen quite a lot at the 1998 World Cup.
Sometimes, though, it feels as if the designers of the outfield strips and the goalkeeper kits are not on the same page and that is what we will look at in this article – instances where a team’s second or third kit had the same (or very similar) design to a goalkeeper strip in the same colour but with different accent colours. We can’t claim that it’s exhaustive, so if you know of any further examples, please comment below or tweet @museumofjerseys.
Netherlands, 2002-03
In the past, we’ve been guilty of referring to the ‘2002 Nike design’, as if the same template was given to all of their contracts that summer, when in fact there were a number of variants. The black Dutch change kit was a rare style featuring an unusual neck but it worked well. While quite a few teams had a swirling line pattern on the torso, the Netherlands (and Brazil) were among those to use a plain version. The black offering was complemented by grey panelling, but the blue version – worn by Edwin van der Sar when the black kit was used against Belgium in 2003 – was trimmed in orange.
Stuttgart, 2004-05
Quite a few teams clad in red and white or white and red were with Puma when this design was in use and Stuttgart – whose change kit was a straight reversal of their home – went a step further by having a red goalkeeper version though, with added grey (the colour of their third kit that season) and black. It seems a white, grey and black edition was available too but we haven’t found evidence of it being used by goalkeeper Timo Hildebrand.
Hamburg, 2005-06
Hamburg joined the Puma stable from Nike in the summer of 2005 and third first set of kits were in the popular design that featured contrasting sleeve stripes. While the third – mainly used in the Uefa Cup – isn’t a proper colour-match for the red goalkeeper shirt, it’s included as quite a few retailers erroneously list the GK top as the third.
Fulham, 2005-06
Another Puma example from the same season as above. Fulham’s black third shirt – almost a reversal of the home, which had a black stripe on one sleeve and a red one on the other – was worn just once, away to Sunderland.
Spain, 2006-07
Like Nike four years previously, adidas brought a modular approach to their main Teamgeist design in 2006 and their goalkeeper template was derived from it but had a different neck style. Spain goalkeeper Iker Casillas did the double in terms of this phenomenon that season…
Real Madrid, 2006-07
The Real away had very rare panelling but the goalkeeper kit was the basic template. Incidentally, Casillas wore both the outfield home shirt (with away shorts and socks) and purple third strip in goal for the club that season.
Manchester United, 2007-08
The example with the fewest differences between the outfield and goalkeeper kits – check out how the colour of the devil is the only variation on the socks.
Hamburg, 2008-09
A second appearance for Hamburg, whose goalkeeper Frank Rost also had a white shirt to call upon in this season, though in a different design to the club’s home strip.
Manchester City, 2016-17
After a number of examples bunched together over a relatively short time-frame, a gap from the second-last to the most recent example, which features the Nike Vapor template – City’s use of a recoloured crest for their change kit adds to the differences.
Benfica in 2006/07 is another example.
They had an adidas Teamgeist style away kit in cream, with red and black trim, black shorts and socks. The first-choice keeper kit was the exact same colour scheme, but using the Teamgeist goalkeeper template
Cheers Jon – and, of course, as well as wearing the GK shirt, Quim also wore the away! https://fanpictures.ru/eurocups/uefa/posters/2007/3pcl-2.jpg
Everton had a couple of very close shirts between 3rd / away and keeper with umbro in the early to mid 2000s
On the subject of Everton, Richard Wright wore a long-sleeved white away shirt at Plymouth Argyle in a televised FA Cup tie in 2005. Everton’s two goalkeeper kit choices that season were black and green, but neither was suitable against Plymouth’s dark green shirts under floodlights.
Fenerbahçe 2009-10 third and gk home
And for possibly half a point, I could perhaps nominate Real Madrid from 98/99 too… they had an all-navy change strip with some fine white horizontal stripes on the front, whereas the first choice keeper kit was the adidas Save template in navy with three white horizonal stripes and appeared to use the navy outfield away shorts too.
Seeing how close some of the outfield players’ kits were to compared to GK kits make me think why not just make same kit that both outfield players and GK could wear when needed. Leeds this season is very annoying too, although the template of GK shorts wouldn’t look great on outfield players if they wore that kit
At the start of the 2002/03 season, Everton keeper Steve Simonsen wore the all black third kit in goal away at Manchester City
Cheers Graeme – must have been a Premier League first?
schalke 04 in 06/07 used the white shirt from 05/06, meanwhile neuer uses a white from the new template of the line players instead of a goallie one.
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