This request comes Jorge Primera, who is a mine of ideas and deserves an apology for not having them done sooner. In fact, he has come up with his own adidas template that can be adapted across the company’s contracts and will feature soon in its own stand-alone article.
For today, we are focusing on his suggestion of England in adidas at the last World Cup. First off, can you imagine the reaction if such a union ever came to pass? Obviously, the more measured media outlets would fall over themselves with ‘Three stripes on a shirt’ headlines, but another, more ‘patriotic’ (insert your own stronger word, if you wish) strand would have a field day. ‘Hans off our kits – England fans aghast as GERMAN company wins contract’ is one we wouldn’t be surprised to see.
Anyway, that’s all conjecture and you’re here for images rather than words. Jorge’s stiuplation was for the adidas Regista 18 template to be used for the first-choice kit, nodding to the Admiral 1980-84 strip. Back in 2018, England had a Nike training top that also took its inspiration from the famous design and it works well, we feel.
A lot of adidas teams in Russia had change shirts based on the Condivo 18 style, which featured squares made up of lines of differing widths.
As a top-tier nation, England would have had something more bespoke and so, as the real Nike away shirt represented the flag in darker red, we have done so in the adidas style.
While most countries still had the adidas logo on the back of the left leg, it’s included on the front here to give some navy balance to the white shorts.
While the actual second kit was only red and white, we have added navy trim so as to allow for swapping of shorts rather than the need for an alternative red pair.
The crossovers call to mind the 1991 Southern Hemisphere tour undertaken by Graham Taylor’s side.
For the goalkeepers, we’ve taken some licence in that (a) monochrome kits are the order of the day now and (b) the adidas 2018 style had its torso pattern rendered in just one colour.
Still, it’s worth it in the same of retro-themed strips, the classic yellow and black first-choice and the 1989-inspired shades of blue.
Feedback is always welcome, along with requests for future FKFs – comment below or tweet @museumofjerseys.
Solid pair off outfield kits there and both keeper kits are absolute perfection 👌 👏 Agree On the subject off monochrome /single colour keeper kits being a bit too prolific these days especially in Englands case when the yellow n black and navy n sky styles were so established in the mid 70s to the mid 90s …… I.m.o as a semi general rule monochrome goalie kits pair and/or tend to suit single colour teams better like Liverpool and Leeds home kits and while I have no problem with other teams goalies in a single colour I do wish more teams would keep/wear their coloured keeper tops with black/dark blue shorts and then you have the option off it’s keeper socks either in the same colour off either the shirt or the shorts … or even go full retro like the Italian national goalies in the 70s/80s and wear same socks as their teammates! Nice 2 item specific gk kit that … I.m.o …I think in last 30 years the club game especially has gone from too many teams only having a gk top (1 specific item kit for goalie compared to teammates ) to too many always having a 3 item/full specific gk kits and a 2 item specific gk kits for me are more often a better/perfect blend (gk top obviously individual and either the shorts if black (like 70s /90s Germany outfielders and gk matching ) or more likely the socks in same colour as teammates should be more often used these days …… also on the subject off opposite goalies rarely wearing the same colours these days (probably Peter Schmeichel’s fault) I would love to see a poll ( in general or on this website perhaps?) to see if people would prefer/vote for a new rule that goalies couldn’t enter either the opponents whole penalty area/ or entire half off the field if it would mean as a “compensation “ from now on the keepers could/ would be allowed to match colours more often like in pre 92 days? Only downside if this rule came in is we would see even fewer goals scored by keepers …in that regard it’s a bit off a fun killing rule just like when the nhl brought in a similar rule when a goalie nearly scored a messi like goal! … that plus always felt sad for ice hockey keepers anyways as them being alone in all the goalie sports wearing the exact same colours as their teammates (?) but I’d wish to know the % off said poll … with keepers hardly matching colours these days an (un) intentional consequence is that now 3rd keepers kits are far less rare then 3rd outfield kits these days in terms off appearances these days and I’ll be intrigued what your 3rd English gk kit would be with the above fantasy set …… I’ll probably go all dark/British racing green like England had 10-12 years ago.
Looks good, but I think a darker, less vibrant shade of blue would be even better.
Me too Charlie, but I was influenced by the fact that the Admiral one had pretty much a royal blue and the real 2018 one didn’t seem to have a dark as navy!