Tag Archives: Barcelona

Nathan’s Top 5s – Best Mashups

13 Friday Apr 2018

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  • Nathan Patrick takes a big interest in the administration of kit-clashes – as this excellent piece goes to show. To continue the collaboration, this is the first of a new series where he choose his five favourite instances of a kit topic, in this case the best mashups.

The first instalment of this series will focus on the five best kit mashups in football history, that have come about to avoid a potential shorts- and/or socks clash but at the same time have looked excellent, perhaps even looking better than the original kit did with the standard shorts and socks.

I define a proper kit mashup as different elements of different kits of the same club being worn as an after-thought but, against the odds, the aesthetics are pleasing.  This list will therefore  not include specific change shorts and/or socks made for that kit or elements from other kits where mixing  and matching were clearly an intention beforehand.

Wales (1976-79, nine occasions)

Wales-Admiral-1977-home-kit-yellow-socks-Scotland-Joe-Jordan

This first entry could technically break one of my rules.  Before 1976, Wales had been stuck with a pedestrian red and white kit which was often worn with white shorts.

Admiral, famous for their innovative and daring templates, changed all this upon their arrival when they kitted Wales out in their eccentric ‘tramline’ template, also worn by Coventry,  trimmed in bright yellow and green. The away kit was in the same template, with the main colour being yellow.

Before the days of changing at the drop of a hat, Wales needed to change socks when they were away to Scotland who were in their classic navy-white-red, while they also did so against Yugoslavia.  In previous years they may have used white change socks, but they decided to use the away kit’s yellow socks, which worked perfectly with the trim on the shirt and shorts.  Some may say that these kits are made to mix and match, but due to the unorthodox nature of any yellow on the Wales kit at that time, I have decided to include it.

Barcelona (2001-02, v Liverpool and Bayer Leverkusen)

Barcelona-2001-2001-away-camiseta-navy-shorts-socks-Liverpool-01

This mash up works so well that you could be excused for thinking this was the standard kit.

Metallic kits were all the rage in the early 2000s and Barcelona released their own gold number with trim in navy and blaugrana.

What was strange was that the kit was released with cherry red shorts and socks, perhaps due to Barca going through their phase of wearing navy shorts and socks with the home shirt and they wore these odd shorts and socks at Roma in an awful overall clash.

Luckily they also faced Liverpool that season, which gave them the perfect chance to mix and match.  The trim on the navy shorts was gold and the navy bar down the shirt flowed nicely into the shorts, which proved that this combination was infinitely better than the default combo.

The season after, the home shorts were worn with this kit once again, but by then the home shorts had changed to royal blue and the magic had been lost.

Arsenal (v Roma, 2002-03)

Arsenal-2002-2003-Nike-away-shirt-white-shorts-socks-Roma-Henry-hat-trick-01

European football often gives us mash ups that we may not have seen otherwise.

In 2002-03, for example,  Arsenal were involved in shorts-clashes and sock-clashes in the Premiership due to the lax rules.

The Champions League’s rules were not as lenient however, and Arsenal needed to change the shorts and socks of their new navy away kit when they went to Roma, who had black shorts and socks for their Champions League strip.

Luckily, and unusually for Arsenal, the home and away kits were in similar colour schemes and templates, with both kits containing large amounts of white and red, which meant that they could just wear the shorts and socks of the home kit and Henry looked particularly elegant in the combo, netting a hat-trick in a dominant performance.

Manchester United (v Sunderland, Cardiff City and Southampton, 2013-14)

Manchester-United-2013-2014-away-shirt-white-shorts-socks-Sunderland-Januzaj-01

United are notorious for creating copious amounts of different shorts and socks combos, often resulting in two or even three different versions of the same-colour component.

You would think this would have been the case in 2013-14 when they had their usual red home shirt accompanied by an all-navy away kit with a black gingham pattern.  United’s home shorts however,  were plain white with a black Nike tick and their home change socks were white with two black lines.

This meant that they could wear them with the away kit, lifting an otherwise dark kit and keeping the tradition of light shorts and socks that Fergie so often adhered to.  Away to Southampton  this arguably created a socks-clash.

Juventus (v Sassuolo, 2015-16)

Juventus-2015-2016-away-maglia-pink-white-shorts-socks-Sassuolo-01

Since Adidas recruited Juventus to their ranks in 2015/16, their designs have been fairly underwhelming for the most part.

However, there is no doubt that, whether you love it or hate it, their pink 2015/16 away kit has become one of the most iconic kits of this decade, receiving mainstream fame after being worn by hip-hop artist Drake.

On the pitch, it was usually worn with black shorts, which didn’t really go with the light nature of the kit, so the perfect opportunity to try something different was grasped at Sassuolo due to a shorts-clash.

Juve turned out in the pink shirts with the white shorts and socks of the home kit, which looked especially good as the Adidas stripes on all three components were black.  The mix-and-match novelty certainly didn’t work with the third kit.

 

 

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Great one-offs – Barcelona third shirt, 2001-02

03 Tuesday Apr 2018

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As we saw in a recent article, Barcelona used both red and blue change shirts for much of the 1980s.

Kappa and then Nike began to use different hues such as aqua, orange, silver and gold, but in 2002 the Catalan club took to the field in a third kit which employed the two primary colours.

In the second group stage of the 2001-02 Champions League, Barça found themselves drawn with Liverpool, Roma and Galatasary.

At Anfield, they wore their gold change shirts but, as the red shorts and socks clashed with Liverpool’s, the home sets were used.

Then, after Christmas, for the trip to Rome, the default away strip was approved for use, but as Roma had a halved European shirt, it was a real mess.

Presumably, given that Galatasaray have similar colours to Roma, UEFA told Barcelona to come with something else for the trip to Istanbul, and so they did, a blue shirt with red and gold trim – in the same design as Rangers’ away kit that season – paired with the away shorts and socks.

Barcelona-2001-2002-Nike-third-kit-blue-Galatasaray-01

A Luis Enrique goal gave Barça a 1-0 win to ensure they topped the group (they would reach the semi-finals, losing to Real Madrid), but the strange thing was that Galatasaray changed kits for the game too, wearing all-white.

Incidentally, Barcelona and Galatasaray were also in the same group for the 2002-03 Champions League, but Barcelona’s new kit had royal shorts and so home kits were worn in both games.

Barcelona’s constant 1980s change kit style

27 Tuesday Feb 2018

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As surprising as it may seem, until the mid-1970s Barcelona had a white change shirt.

It’s hard, nay impossible to imagine such a situation nowadays, when over-reaction trumps everything else, but that was the case until they introduced yellow shirts with a blaugrana sash (seen here against Ipswich Town in 1977, though oddly, they wore white at Portman Road in 1979).

When Meyba became Barcelona’s kit suppliers in 1982, they opted to retain that colour-scheme, but with the blue and grenadine arranged in a vertical dual-stripe on the right of the shirt. At the time, kit changes were rare in the Spanish league unless unavoidable, so Barcelona’s Meyba alternative shirts were generally seen in European ties.

The long-sleeved version was used at Old Trafford in 1984, when Manchester United cam from 2-0 down to win 3-2 on aggregate. Note the small pocket on the shorts.

Barcelona-1982-1987-Meyba-camiseta-amarillo-01

In 1984-85, Barça contrived to exit the Cup Winners’ Cup against Metz, losing 4-1 at home after winning 4-2 away. The home side changed in both legs and, while we don’t know if that loss contributed to the retirement of the kit, the club wouldn’t wear yellow again until 2005-06 – though that was more of a luminous shade, with the 2008-09 kit a more authentic recreation.

Instead, they adopted a two-pronged approach to change kits – red when the opposition wore blue and blue when the other side played in red.

The blue kit was what Barcelona wore when they missed four penalties in the 1986 European Cup final penalty shootout against Steaua Bucharest (who were in a Real Madrid-like all-white for the first time in their history).

It would appear in a winning European final three years later though, when Barça overcame Sampdoria in the Cup Winners’ Cup decider.

Barcelona-1989-Meyba-camiseta-blau-Sampdoria-01Initially, the red version was without the stripes, as worn against Bayer Uerdingen in 1986-87, but they were added later, seen against Lech Poznan in 1988-89.

For 1989-90, Meyba refreshed the Barça kit, adding shadow stripes and removing the pocket from the shorts. The new shorts were seen against Fram Reykjavik in the 1990-91 Cup Winners’ Cup – the Icelandic side wore white at home and blue in the Nou Camp but Barça wore red in both legs.

However, the shirts were slightly different, in that those in the first leg in Reykjavik had a shadow effect on the stripes, but the previous style was restored at home.

The club made it to the final of that competition for the second time in three years. Their opponents Manchester United wore a special one-off white shirt as they won 2-1, with Barça in blue.

As well as the shadow stripes on the shorts, the 1989 update on the home kit had seen the Meyba logo added to the socks.

Barcelona-1991-Meyba-camiseta-blau-Manchester-United-01

That game marked the end of a nine-year era, as an all-new change kit design was introduced in the summer of 1991. Perhaps in homage to Barça coach Johan Cruyff, it was primarily orange, with the extra trim quite reminiscent of that on the 1990 Romania World Cup kit, while the fabric featured the Meyba logo repeated throughout.

It was a kit which would go down in the club’s folklore as it was worn in the 1992 European Cup final against Sampdoria, when the claimed claimed the continental title for the first time.

Barcelona-1992-Meyba-camiseta-naranja-Sampdoria-01

The orange shirts wouldn’t be seen in the celebration photos though, as the Barcelona players changed into their more famous home tops for the presentation.

Midweek Mashup – Barcelona, 2013

19 Thursday Oct 2017

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A new departure this week, and not just because power outage problems here in Ireland mean that it’s published on a Thursday, rather than a Wednesday.

No, this week’s edition is notable because it features a mashup which doesn’t involve any alteration to the traditional kit elements of shirts, shorts or socks.

With a lot of focus on Catalan independence of later, attention had been paid to Barcelona’s training tops, which are arranged in red and yellow stripes like the Senyera, the flag of Catalonia.

In the 2013-14 season, the club’s away kit was in this format:

Nike-Barcelona-2013-2014-away-kit-shirt-senyera-01

It was worn with plain yellow change socks as well as yellow change shorts, but instead we’re looking at the game away to Athletic Bilbao on December 1, 2013.

You’ll note above how there is a yellow-to-red effect on the sleeves and socks, achieved with stripes of varying widths. The red at the end of the sleeves meant that the long-sleeved shirts, as favoured by Gerard Piqué, had red on the forearms, and, as per FIFA rules, baselayers worn under short sleeves had to imitate this.

It made for quite a red look and, given that Bilbao have red and white stripes, referee Juan Martinez Munuera came up with a solution – he asked Barça to wear yellow baselayers.

Nike-Barcelona-2013-2014-away-yellow-baselayer-Bilbao-01

Why he didn’t also ask for the yellow shorts and socks to be worn, maximising the contrast, is unknown. However, Barcelona, undefeated in the league until then, lost 1-0, and the yellow baselayers were not seen again.

Fantasy Kit Friday, 28-7-17

28 Friday Jul 2017

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A nice confluence of events for today’s addition to the FKF canon.

Daniel Gellatley is a top-notch graphic designer – he must be if Simon Shakeshaft uses him for images relating to The Arsenal Shirt like this one…

 

 

 

…and he’s also responsible for the kit graphics on UnitedKits.com. We were delighted, therefore, when Daniel got in touch with a Fantasy Kit Friday suggestion. With Barcelona’s new home shirt employing stripes of various width, he came up with this idea to create a similar effect:

 

 

And here it is. In 2004-05, Barca’s socks were actually the reverse of below, but we felt that the extra red on the shirt, compared to the real one, had to be balanced.

Nike-Barcelona-Fantasy-Kit-Friday-2004-01

And then Daniel had another idea:

 

And we were happy to accommodate that request too, with the original socks restored.

Nike-Barcelona-Fantasy-Kit-Friday-2004-Juve-01

Which do you prefer? Let us know on Twitter, @museumofjerseys.

Fantasy Kit Friday, 20-1-17

20 Friday Jan 2017

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It’s hard to do a lot with stripes, so anything which manages that in a positive way tends to be remembered.

We have done Barcelona before…

…so this time we decided to use the Catalan club as the base for the most famous country to play in stripes, Argentina.

When Barça joined forces with Kappa in 1992, this kit caused controversy because it featured white, the colour of Real Madrid, but beyond that initial hullabaloo, there was a lot to like and the home and away lasted for three seasons, something unheard of nowadays.

Argentina are lucky that their albiceleste and white complement black very well, while the dark blue away also allows for nice looks.

Fantasy Kit Friday 2016 – a look back

29 Thursday Dec 2016

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Hopefully, you’re aware of Fantasy Kit Friday, our weekly attempt to dress a team up in a historical style different to that which they actually wore. Tomorrow, December 30, will be the final instalment of the year, so we felt it an apposite time to collate all of the offerings together.

While the concept of a weekly edition only manifested itself this year, the idea itself is actually just over two years old, as we road-tested it with four Irish Gaelic games teams in classic adidas:

 

They got a fairly good response, albeit to a limited audience, but other things got in the way of it becoming a regular feature. Even when we gave it a name in April, it was still ad hoc – though, unoriginally, the template was becoming fixed:

It would be nearly a month before another attempt:

We were getting some ‘engagement’, as the digital marketing bods call it, but there was an inherent fear that our adidas bias was unhealthy. We threw it out to the floor, though, and the first request for the now-hashtagged #fantasykitfriday was still from Herzogenrauch, though of a later vintage.

Another break of more than a month ensued – we were learning how to draw on Adobe Illustrator – but this one kick-started a regular weekly flow of higher-quality renderings.

Where possible, we liked to be topical:

And then, occasionally, surreality prevailed (there was a break of a week due to holidays).

At the end of July, work took us to Leeds for a few days, so inspiration was taken from that.

Some of our favourite kits have been the ones that you know could never have happened but still look great.

There’s always time to return to the classic look.

Other times, we feel generous enough to give a two-for-one.

Request are accommodated as much as possible, as it saves us having to think.

For September 9, we conferred with our old sparring partner Andrew Rockall, a massive Tottenham Hotspur fan, to come with a whole suite of Spurs kits and we published them all here. If you can’t be bothered to check, this was the home:

THFC1.png

Some kits can meet opposition from traditionalists…

…and others that you might be unsure about turn out to be well-received.

It’s often fun to use a team’s current (or, in this case, soon-to-be-former) maker and go back to before they had them.

And there are others that are very out there.

This one worked a lot better in our heads than on the screen, sadly.

If we had time, every week would feature a home, away and third as well as goalkeeper kits. Unfortunately, we don’t, but it does make these ones more enjoyable.

As far as we can see, this is the only instance of a team’s own home kit being recoloured.

Looking at these again, one almost has to do a double-take and remember that City didn’t actually have Hummel.

Their rivals switched to Umbro in 1992, but might have looked like this if they did it sooner.

Just after drawing this, we were very pleased with it. Until it was pointed out that Germany’s leisurewear in 1996 was just like this, so that’s probably where the idea subliminally came from.

Another request, more on which you can read about at the wonderful Hull City Kits.

The bias is very much towards the past, so it’s no harm to mix it up every once in a while.

And it’s not all top teams we do either. Any suggestion will be considered.

Collaborate with a friend for an idea, if you want.

But be warned, we can be selfish when we want.

Edit: For completeness, here is the final one:

Barcelona: the Kappa years

30 Saturday Apr 2016

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Kappa only made the Barcelona kits for six years, but it was a very important period in the club’s sartorial history, taking it from the almost-too-stable constancy provided by local supplier Meyba to the excesses and gimmicks we have come to expect from Nike. Originality and envelope-pushing characterised the Italian firm’s tenure, while the nerds had more than enough niggly variations with which to be appeased.

With Barça having beaten Sampdoria after extra time to win the European Cup in May 1992, Kappa’s arrival that summer was well-timed. Keen to announce themselves, they immediately lit a fire under some extreme elements with the liberal inclusion of white on the sleeves and shorts, with the Kappa logo repeated on those strips. The fabric also featured the logo and the ‘Barça’ wordmark repeated.

As designs go, the home was pleasing in terms of balance and layout. While the away was in an unusual colour (they did wear light blue against Manchester United in the 1991 European Cup Winners’ Cup final, but it was more of the sky variety), the inclusion of blue and red helped.

Barcelona won a third title in a row in 1992-93 and Kappa decided to introduce a special kit for the 93-94 Champions League campaign. The stripes layout, with the sleeves joining perfectly with the body, would become common on later efforts, while the middle section of the neck could be ‘hidden’ by closing the two white buttons.

In the summer of 1994, though, UEFA clamped down on excessive advertising in European competitions. For Barça, it meant that the sleeve trim lost the Kappa logos while the fabric was now plain. Champions League patches were also worn for the first time in 94-95, with Barça employing both versions – a white star on the away but the star enclosed in a black square on the European home. Incidentally, Champions League group rivals Manchester United also fell victim to this, wearing a changed version of their away in the 4-0 game at the Nou Camp.

1993-94 Barcelona European home kit
1994-95 Barcelona European home kit
1994-95 Barcelona European away kit

Kappa’s first Barcelona kits will probably go down in history as the last time an elite European club wore the same home strip for three seasons. The new version introduced in 1995 used the same striping as the 93-95 European kit (but with the colours reversed), while the use of navy was also initiated, something Nike would really run with.

The away kit kept the turquoise but in two shades and employed an array of geometric shapes. Numbers were included on the shorts from 95-96 – UEFA wouldn’t mandate them until a year later.

While a specialist European kit was no longer used, Barcelona had to alter their kits to remove the Kappa logos from the sleeves and shorts. An orange version of the away kit was prepared for use as a third strip but never appeared in a game, as far as we can ascertain.

1995-97 Barcelona European home kit
1995-97 Barcelona European away kit
1995-97 Barcelona European third kit

Orange was, of course, the colour worn by Barça in that 1992 European Cup final, presumably a tribute to then-coach Johan Cruyff as much as anything else. It returned for Kappa’s final set of kits, an attractive outfit trimmed with blue, grenadine and navy. The home dispensed with the navy but injected contrasting pinstripes in the middle of the normal versions. The neck style would later be used by Wales when they joined with Kappa.

Having not won La Liga since 1994, Barcelona did the double in 97-98 under Louis van Gaal. In the celebrations, we can clearly recall Iván de la Peña driving one of those motorised buggies used to carry off injured players – unfortunately, we can’t find the footage.

Kappa also marked their swansong with new European kits, this time with an away kit too. The home recalled the halved shirts initially worn by the club (Nike would have a closer replica for the centenary celebrations in 1999) but carrying the style onto the shorts was a bit of a bum note. Again, the away was orange with a similar style used – better when done so sparingly, for our money.

Did someone say bonus track? Well, here is what we still think, 19 years on, is one of the best things done on a kit. In 97-98, Barcelona’s two goalkeepers were the Portuguese Vítor Baía and Dutchman Ruud Hesp – whether it was the relative brevity of their names or another reason, Kappa gave each fully personalised kits.

By that, we don’t just mean names on the back – these had the players’ first and second names down the sleeves, in the fabric. Truly unique, and just a pity nobody has done anything similar since. Edit: See comments for another kind-of example.

A better solution to the Barcelona-Atletico clash

12 Tuesday Apr 2016

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Last week, when Barcelona met Atletico Madrid in the first leg of their Champions League quarter-final at the Nou Camp, both sides wore their change kits, as decreed by UEFA.

barcaatleti0

It was a development slavishly reported by outlets too numerous to mention, without much original comment. Absent from the minimal debate was a) why Atletico didn’t have a suitable third kit – which we had always thought was a UEFA requirement – and b) whether there was a better answer than this nuclear solution (as an aside, Atletico had to wear their away kit at home to Benfica earlier in the campaign, when the Portuguese side only had their red home and white away to choose from).

In their domestic meetings this season, both sides wore their home kits, but that was far from ideal, primarily because Atletico’s shorts were blue and Barcelona’s were red. The situation came in for a lot of criticism on social media.

Screen Shot 2016-04-12 at 15.38.51

What we have termed the ‘overall clash’ is a situation whereby two teams’ shirts don’t necessarily look like each other, but the shorts and socks contribute to a greater confusion. That’s the problem here, the shorts are making a manageable situation bad.

Our suggestion would be that Atletico would wear their change home shorts, as they did against Espanyol at the weekend, with Barcelona in their blue away shorts (thanks to Martin LeRoy for the graphic work below).

barcaatleti2

It works far better, in our view, and still allows both teams to wear their home shirts. Unfortunately, we’d be very surprised if it were to come to pass tomorrow night in the second leg.