In the blink of the eye, we’re through the first month of 2021 and have crashed headlong into February.
Whilst many of us were busy living with lockdowns, home-schooling and furlough schemes, a fair bit of football was played, with one or two wonderful kits released too.
After taking a little break from Kit of the Week duties, we’re back for a look at a handful of football shirt stories that caught our eye over the last few weeks.
Let’s start with a wonderful anniversary kit released right at the end of December (yeah OK, that’s last year, we know).
Manufacturers love to celebrate a big birthday with a special, limited edition throwback shirt and Kappa gave Palermo an unfamiliar half-and-half look to toast 120 years of Sicilian footballing heritage.
With a natty little lace-up collar and pics of the current side wearing spiffing moustaches, the full kit reminds us of Manchester United’s Newton Heath strip launch of the 1990s.
Palermo wore the kit for their last Serie C encounter of 2020 which resulted in a 1-1 draw with Bari on December 23rd.
Back when it was still OK to say Happy New Year, the world had a good old laugh at Turkish side Sivasspor after they turned up in an all-white kit for a match in a snow storm.
Television viewers found it impossible to place exactly where their players were on the pitch, making everyone wonder why they hadn’t just worn their red and white striped home shirts for the wintry trip to Istanbul Basaksehir that ended in a 1-1 draw.
Silly Sivasspor eh?
For our money, the most memorable football shirt of the last month belongs to Mexican giants Club América.
Nike’s sensational third shirt is based on the Aztec inspired jerseys worn by goalkeeper Guillermo Ochoa for Las Águilas back in the 2000s.
What really works here is how key elements, and especially the sponsors logos, come together to work in harmony with the intricate black and white pattern.
An early candidate for football shirt of the year?
We certainly think so.
On the flip side, we were left scratching our heads at the recent spate of “4th shirts” released by Nike for Barcelona, Liverpool, Tottenham Hotspur, Chelsea and Paris Saint Germain, all because . . . well . . . three shirts can never be enough can they?
Barça’s new top bleeds more yellow into their famous Blaugrana colours to create a series of Catalan Senyera stripes across the lower half of the shirt, which will be worn against rivals Real Madrid in April.
Meanwhile Liverpool, Spurs and Chelsea each received Nike Air Max themed leisure shirts which will probably never be worn on the pitch, but further demonstrate the power of the Swoosh to sell shirts and open up new revenue markets for Premier League clubs.
Shirt merchants extraordinaire PSG took our brains to another dimension with their extra-terrestrial, iridescent collection of kit and street-smart leisurewear.
The Jordan branded shirts carry that bright luminescence that really catches the eye on social media and uses the same experimentation and invention we see in special edition e-sports kits.
You could probably go clubbing in these.
If you wanted to.
Nike’s series of 4th shirts further illustrate the crossover between football and fashion, which although nothing new, helps menfolk of each generation realise the exact moment they became old, stopped enjoying things for what they are and left them loudly tutting away to themselves.
Yes, those Nike Air Max shirts may have given us that moment.
So let’s turn our eyes across to South America and Club Universitario de Desportes from the Peruvian capital city of Lima.
From Deportivo Wanka to their classic World Cup shirts with that special red sash, we’ve always had a soft spot for kits from Peru.
Fans of Los Merengues have not been too keen on Marathon’s new kit, bemoaning the presence of the band of colour across the chest, but we disagree, these are just sublime.
The cream shirts and shorts are set off perfectly by those cherry and burgundy accents, whilst the black socks give the whole kit a lovely depth.
Tasty looking stuff from Marathon.
Sartorial Soccer 