By Jay from Marceltipool
Baselayer time is definitely upon us. Because, despite the garments being advertised as, in some form or another, regulating body temperature and/or reducing injury risk through compression, footballers often just wear another layer when it’s cold.
Even Newcastle United’s Harvey Barnes was at it against Paris Saint-Germain in the week. Barnes has worn both short- and long-sleeved shirts this season, with no baselayer visible when it’s the former, but in the Parc des Princes he had a striped upper arm and was plain white from elbow to wrist.
Which is a bit of a turn-up for a second reason. Against PSV (Eindhoven) at St James’ Park, the Magpies, like against PSG, wore – in effect, changed to – alternative white home shorts and socks to accommodate their Dutch visitors and their nominally all-navy change look, but the players who wore baselayers went with black.
Not necessarily a contravention of the rules in isolation – the best that can be hoped for with a home shirt with striped sleeves is that the plain baselayer is in the colour of one of the stripes – but a forearm encased in black clashes with a forearm encased in navy, whether the latter belongs to a shirt or a baselayer.
It was disappointing that Newcastle weren’t following the lead of Juventus in what long-sleeved undershirt to go for when black and white sleeves provide two options – the Turin-based side actually had the choice due to alternate-coloured ‘odd’ sleeves rather than striped examples with their 2019-20 kit – after Barcelona had obligingly pioneered switching up baselayer colour to aid team distinction in 2013-14.
But common sense seems to have prevailed. When Newcastle United are in a predominantly black home kit, black baselayers would generally be a logical choice, and when they’re in a predominantly white home kit, white baselayers are likely to be best.
Regardless of that overarching and ideological take on avoiding kit clashes, Newcastle’s opponents having sleeves in a deep blue makes black baselayers, as were worn against PSV, a poor choice when there was the option of white, which was rightly taken up against PSG.
Barnes and his team-mates were back in long sleeves of the outer-layer variety against Liverpool this weekend, but it’s good to assume that they will be properly attired, whatever their upper-body preferences, from here on out.
For some reason adidas haven’t supplied Newcastle with long sleeve shirts for the Champions League – which is strange, because plenty of players have worn them in domestic cup competitions. While for Liverpool, the reverse is true: in domestic cups, it’s short sleeves only.
Wouldn’t it be great if manufacturers provided baselayers with stripes? Take Feyenoord – their players are offered baselayers with alternate red and white sleeves to match the design of the actual playing shirt.