Almost two years ago, we looked at the 1998 Argentina change kit and the strange situation whereby the navy shirts and shorts appeared with mismatching black socks.
That originated in part due to the fact that the primary strip was sky blue, white and black, whereas the backup outfit was navy, sky and white. The set proved to be the last made by adidas for three years, with Reebok taking over production in the interim – and they sought to make things more streamlined.
The new striped shirts were now paired with navy rather than black shorts and the change strip was intended to be fully complementary, with navy shirts and socks and sky blue shorts. There were two sky blue horizontal stripes across the midriff while a gold ‘AFA’ script based on the crest provided a flourish.
There was also a set of white shorts for use with the home shirt, which appeared in three different configurations – navy shorts/white socks, navy shorts and socks and white shorts and socks.
The latter mix appeared in the 1999 Copa América against Uruguay, who were in their usual look of sky blue shirts with black shorts and socks.
That game would have been a good opportunity to wear the navy kit but it ended up only being worn once by the senior team – a 1-0 defeat to the USA in Washington DC in June, just before the Copa, perhaps casting it with the ‘unlucky’ tag.
The shirts would appear again in 2000, worn in an Olympic qualifier against Uruguay, with navy shorts and white socks – presumably the kit-clashing rules there were stricter than those employed by Conmebol. Later, they wore navy against Finland in the 2001 U20 World Cup, combined with navy shorts of the home kit that had superseded the 1999 one.
Argentina returned to adidas in 2001 and, while the change shirts remained navy, there was a concession to interchangeability in the default shorts were white, allowing for crossover between the two strips.
