As you’ll surely have heard, Germany have agreed a deal with Nike which will see the American firm take over the manufacture of their kit from 2027 onwards.
It will be strange to see Germany wearing something other than adidas – though they have sported Erima in the past – but there was a time not so long ago when the idea of them in something other than black home shorts, or a green change kit, would have seemed alien.
The new home strip has white shirts – presumably seeking to hark back to the 2014 World Cup win – while the away is a most un-traditional pink and purple concoction. We will soon have a review of these from Germany supporter Simon Treanor but, for now, we will look at 1998.
Things were fairly traditional, notwithstanding the design sensibilities of the time.
The home strip was based on an adidas design known as Cadix, with three stripes across the chest – though their presence makes the ‘normal’ adidas stripes look a bit jarring.
The change kit style was literally called Traditional in the adidas catalogue, though the white central stripe was a break from the norm.
Germany played five games at the World Cup and wore the primary kit in all of them, though the away was used against Finland in a warm-up friendly in late May.
In friendlies against Colombia and Luxembourg, the home strip was used, albeit with the logo of a children’s charity on the front. The latter match took place in Mannheim on June 5 and the team departed for France straight afterwards.
Prior to their World Cup opener against the United States, they played one more practice match, this time against a Côte d’Azur XI. As it wasn’t an international, the team was ‘Germany XI’ rather than Germany and so didn’t wear the proper kit.
Instead, they wore something that could almost be described as a hybrid of their home and away, a green and black teamwear version of the Cadix shirt, with ersatz versions of the home shorts and away socks. Players wore their World Cup squad numbers but the jerseys didn’t carry names.
Incidentally, the local side wore the adidas Prestige design in white and blue, as Finland did. Germany won the match 2-1 but the kit was not needed again.
It would take until 2018 for the time Germany had a green change kit in a World Cup year.
