No matter whether you call them shirts, kits, jerseys or uniforms, the experts at The Football Attic, True Colours and Design Football have compiled a comprehensive list of the 50 greatest soccer jerseys ever.
The experts, which include John Devlin, Chris Oakley, Rich Johnson and Jay (from DesignFootball.com) went through thousands of shirt to come up with the top 50.
If you enjoy football shirts and want to find out more details about why and how these 50 shirts were picked, be sure to subscribe to The Football Attic podcast and website where the experts analyze each of the 50 shirts.
Out of the top 50, there’s a little here for everyone — from lower league teams, World Cup winners, remarkable designs, and much more.
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• Interview with Toby Charles from Soccer Made In Germany
• Where to watch the Bundesliga on US TV and streaming
#15 is flat out ugly.
So you REALLY love that West Germany template since it appears three times… #1, #45 and #48 are all the same shirt. Only #1 truly looks good, but nowhere near #1. Then again,both of the USA 94 jerseys reared their ugly heads, so this list is immediately discredited.
Best bet is to listen to their podcast where they go into a lot of detail about why each shirt was picked (if you’re interested, of course). It was pretty revealing and informative.
What a weak list…and the presence of the 1994 USA away jersey kills its credibility entirely.
Which shirts would be in your top 5?
I really expected Barcelona’s 2010-11 home jerseys to be number one. Perfectly spaced vertical red and blue stripes, with Unicef written across the front. Unbelievable that this jersey wasn’t even on the list at all.
Interesting how seeing the kit in action goes a long way toward its “value”. Even this year, Watford’s kit looks terrible sitting there, much better on the pitch (though still not great).
My top 5 of this top 50, omitting my own club’s offerings because there aren’t enough and they’d all be top five easy:
BTW:
5: Danish Dynamite. Also interesting to note how success in a kit can go a long way toward its ranking. This one looked incredible when they won, looked clownish when they lost Talk about a roller coaster two weeks in the summer of ’86! No copycat ever looked good (Coventry, Soton, Villa.)
4: – Netherlands 1988 – beautiful shirt for beautiful players, only dropped because of the fact others used it too (CCCP, Germany alt) 2014 Dutch alt kit clearly took some hints from this one (and could have cracked top 50 also)
3: Newcastle 95-97. Most NUFC kits earn little more than a nod and acceptance that it’s a NUFC kit. The collar (!!!), the stripes, the Newcastle Brown sponsorship I even remember the material being interesting too. And the complimentary alt kit could easily have made this top 50 list too. The only thing less than spectacular about it was the white stock ADIDAS numbers they used on them. A black box on the back for numbers and you’re five stars.
2: France 1984. Beautiful shirt. Wales had something similar that also looked great, but the Bleu/blanc/rouge is classic
1: Scotland 88-91. There are so many little details that make that such an amazing shirt. The shorts and socks also fit the bill beautifully. Perhaps the perfect kit. Scotland could wear it forever (perhaps tweak shorts length, granted) and still look on top of their game.
Very poor list. Some horrendous jerseys. Makes no sense. A polo shirt at #2, really when a truly iconic England shirt barely made the top ten. Nice to see some of the classic Admiral shirts. They were top shirts back in the day.
Some fine designs but really, no Hearts (H) from last season?
Simple classic adidas design, nice collar, no sponsor, plain deep maroon, 1914 style badge. A definite top 10 entry.
Other missing ones off the top of my head:
– Northern Ireland anniversary home shirt from about 10 years ago
– O. Marseilles circa ’93 (same design as USA shirt at #39
– Denmark 1992 (not as good as 1986 but still iconic)
– Barcelona 1999 (thick *vertical* stripes, no sponsor, badge on centre of shirt)
How about s.s lazio 93-94 shirt or ac milan shirt 89-90 or the 93-94 juventus 92-93???
The Newcastle 1995/97 shirt should be higher and the away shirt of 1995/97 was even better because it had blue and purple hoops with white Adidas stripes and collar. It was so ahead of it’s time because it one of the few retro shirts that would still be fashionable today and not in an ironic way.
How about Argentina jersey World Cup 2006 both home and away ,same as World Cup in Brazil.
For me at least worth mentioning.
No Italia ’90 England? too painful? IMO the most knowingly fashion-fwd kit of the last several decades.
Really like the podcasts and reasoning behind the choices. The adidas #1 Germany kit template gives me anxiety but it’s easily the most iconic abstract graphic of all time. Outside of the three stripes themselves, For me, it feels emblematic of the football shirt’s transition into the field of mainstream design. I hate all German kits (until this year’s funnily enough) but it deserves a high ranking. One thing about the panel is that they sound like they’re all around the same age. Good in a way because they’ve prob all come of age during the most influential years of kit evolution, but it’d be interesting to infuse the convo with a few younger opinions.
Arsenal 71 away yellow should be in any list
In fact, the #1 was a improved copy to the Enerre’s Napoli away jersey from 1989-90
http://www.francescocammarota.it/images/1989-90-bianca-maradonaG.JPG
There probably the 50 worst kits
Brazil’s yellow jersey – any year?
To not have the Adidas Tri foil Man U jersey or the Candi Liverpool jersey is just heartbreaking