Ranking all 24 Euro 2024 home kits: A familiar winning combination and one absolute disgrace

Dave Tickner

Some people will tell you major tournaments are about the football, but that’s rubbish. They’re about the kits. Good kits, bad kits, countless indifferent kits and always, every year, without fail, one absolute total inexplicable abomination of a thing. And Euro 2024 is no exception.

 

24) Croatia
We’ll let you in on a secret. In real life we don’t actually get genuinely angry about football kits. We exaggerate our feelings here for dramatic effect. It’s called artistic licence, darling. But this kit has boiled every last millilitre of our piss. We are both fuming and running on fumes. Fumes of piss.

Because this isn’t just a slightly disappointing or bland kit or one that goes for something bold and doesn’t quite land. Just look at it. That’s not a checkerboard, is it? That’s just some squares. In fact, now we’ve calmed down enough to look at it properly, are they even f*cking squares? Are they… are they rectangles?

It’s barely one step removed from Harlequin quarters. This is f*cking up the un-f*ck-up-able and everyone at Nike involved in this should be ashamed of themselves. It is nothing short of a scandal.

There would be no saving this anyway, but it seems to us that the collar on the Nike Euro template makes this even worse than it might otherwise have been. It is then a disastrous design idea placed on a template that accentuates those disasters.

This being Croatia’s kit in a rare tournament where they can wear home kit in all three group games is a cruel twist of fate indeed.

 

23) Ukraine
A shirt released in 2021 and not updated because Ukraine have been in dispute with Joma over the brand’s continued presence in Russian football. Ukraine will be moving to adidas after the tournament, but are for now left stuck with a shirt that is okay but whose age – and specifically the reasons behind it – leaves a sour note.

 

22) Serbia
There is just very little going on here, and the red is neither nowt nor summat. It’s not a bright, popping vibrant red but it’s not a really deep, mysterious wine red either. A combination of design and colour that lack any oomph leads to an absolute 5/10 shirt which is only saved at all by the surprising yet welcome blue cuffs.

 

21) Austria
The print on the shirt elevates this considerably, but it is at the end of the day another red Puma T-shirt in a tournament that features far, far too many red Puma T-shirts.

 

20) Slovakia
We’re not saying that when designing all their gear for this tournament Nike somehow forgot about Slovakia and had to knock something up last minute, we’re just saying that if that did somehow happen (which it didn’t, just to be clear) this is the shirt you’d get. Why is it on the old Vapor template? Who knows. It’s not offensively bad in any way, but it is offensively inoffensive. The sheer absence of design almost appearing to be a choice in itself.

 

19) Albania
No new tournament kit for Albania, which is rare. Rare also to see anyone – even Manchester United are reluctant – fully commit to red and black as Albania so nearly do here. We like this a lot and it would rank far, far higher if the Macron logo was in black. We can just about accept white for the nameset for reasons of visibility, but that manufacturer’s logo unbalances the whole aesthetic of the shirt quite alarmingly. A shame.

 

18) Turkey
It’s a good kit, lots to like about it really. The centralised badges for country and manufacturer work well with the striking band across the chest. This is essentially pretty much flawless. But even though this has solid historical roots we’re still struggling to come to terms with Turkey going white with a red band as their home kit. It’s our problem not theirs, but it’s going to take a while for this to sit right with us after having red home kits pretty much throughout the 21st century until the last couple of years.

 

17) Poland
Part of the problem with giving Turkey a white shirt with red details is that it ends up looking a lot like a Poland home shirt. Poland also have the central badge and Nike swoosh going on but the curious reality here is that Turkey have got to our eyes a better Poland home kit than Poland, from the same manufacturer.

Nice big oversized badge, though. Always fans of that on a national team shirt.

 

16) Portugal
Lots of national teams play in red, don’t they? And with almost all of them we would instinctively favour a bright red over a deep red, unless it’s done very well indeed (see Belgium at this tournament, for instance).

A huge exception to this rule is Portugal, who absolutely should always be kitted out in a deeper, darker red to complement a deep, dark green for the shorts.

It’s rare we’ll criticise a kit for being too bright, but both the red and the green aren’t quite right for us here, and it’s a rare misstep and low ranking for a generally reliable performer.

 

15) Switzerland
We don’t mind companies using templates for major tournaments, but when they’re as bland as Puma’s offering for this tournament then you do have a bit of a problem with a whole batch of largely identical T-shirts on display. Scores above Serbia only for being a better red.

MORE ON EURO 2024 FROM F365:
👉 Euro 2024 squads: Every country has named at least preliminary team before June 7 deadline
👉 Rio Ferdinand 19th: All 25 Euro 2024 pundits ranked as BBC, ITV announce broadcasting teams

 

14) Czechia
Another problem with Puma’s bland template is they also have an awful lot of countries who play in red on their books. This is the best of the four, though, because we like the blue collar and cuffs better than the white and it’s a nice bright red to keep it ahead of Serbia.

 

13) Romania
Jumps into mid-table almost entirely on the basis of that Romanian flag detail to the cuffs because it’s an otherwise humdrum effort from the lads at Joma.

 

12) Spain
It’s absolutely adequate, but this is for us the least impressive of all the adidas kits at this tournament. Mainly that’s because most of them are absolutely stunning. There are plenty of tournaments where you could bus this shirt in and immediately secure a top-five finish, but it really does suffer in inevitable comparison with so many of its stablemates here.

 

11) Netherlands
We’re not at all certain we won’t completely change our minds on this one, but for now we are distinctly underwhelmed despite liking a great deal of this shirt’s individual elements. The orange is suitably bright, the navy is great and the lighter blue behind the badge better yet. And yet…

Maybe we’re just guilty of expecting too much from Netherlands kits? At least here we’re a world away from the crimes Nike have committed with Croatia. This is a fine Netherlands kit, but we want brilliance.

We think roughly 74% of our issue is the collar. Not every Nike kit with the big template double collar benefits from it, but we’re pretty sure this is one that would.

 

10) Slovenia
The first of two kits with a really quite striking vertical stripe element. With both, we can’t shake the notion that the need to break this stripe to incorporate the number is a shame, disrupting what should be a far more pleasing overall look.

 

9) Georgia
Their first major tournament sees them sporting a bold effort that combines the front-of-shirt stripe with the shoulders to represent the cross from the nation’s flag. Very clever, very bold, and the small crosses incorporated into the material also do the business.

But that gap to get the numbers in. It’s even more jarring than on Slovenia’s similarly inconvenienced effort and costs this shirt a good number of places in this ranking, sadly.

 

8) Hungary
This is one of the weaker efforts from the adidas design at this tournament, and that’s a huge compliment because this is comfortably in 7.5/10 territory. Absolutely nothing wrong with it, but it just lacks that certain something extra that Germany, Belgium, Italy and Scotland have been given.

What this shirt does do perfectly is demonstrate what makes it such a good template for international teams. It’s easy enough – although still surprisingly uncommon – to design a kit that can accommodate just the right amount of a secondary colour. But international kits very often benefit from or even quite simply demand a third colour. Especially ones based specifically on flag colours.

You might never in your life have previously given a moment’s thought to how much green should be on a Hungary shirt, and now you never need do so again. Because the correct amount of green on a Hungary shirt is this amount of green. It’s not the best shirt in the competition, but few can more impeccably met the brief.

 

7) England
A really good England kit, just the right amount of navy blue on there, and we’d ranked it really highly among recent kits even before a lot of the very worst people got so upset about the flag on the collar.

England players pose for a team photo before the 1-0 defeat to Brazil
The England team in happier times, before the game

Having wrongly believed the snazzy colours to represent some kind of Pride flag, they were then required to pivot to insisting that actually ANY manipulation of the precious flag of St George is unacceptable, a bold gambit for lads who every fortnight and every other summer for the last two decades have been carrying one with ‘SHAGGERS ON TOUR’ daubed across the front of it.

So yeah. Perfect, really. An England shirt that is about as inoffensively solid as you could ever ask that has still managed to really wind up all the right people.

 

6) Scotland
If you’re going to go with tartan on a Scotland kit, you have to either be very subtle about it or completely brazen in-your-face bold about it. Lean right into that sh*t. Adidas got the subtle route expertly here, and the bright, almost neon yellow pops pleasingly against a deliciously dark navy base.

Adidas have nailed this tournament, quite frankly.

 

5) Belgium
We really like the adidas template and there’s going to be a lot of them high on this list. We’re not going to apologise for that, it’s the nature of the game. Belgium may not have a team as good as some recent vintages, but they won’t let anyone down with their kits.

Remember what we said about Serbia’s attempt at a deeper red not quite working? This is what it looks like when it does. It’s a stunning, classy effort this from the Belgians, with the only very minor gripe from us being that the gold somehow contrives to make the new adidas logo look absolutely massive. We’re almost certain this is an optical illusion, but it vexes us ever so slightly and we do not like to be vexed.

 

4) Italy
It should by now be clear we are fans of adidas’ kits for this tournament. Has this one risen so very near the top of the pile entirely because of the three stripes being in the colours of Italy’s flag? We prefer not to speak.

It’s a triumph, though. Really is. Italy, as one of very few countries whose primary football colours have nothing to do with the nation’s flag, offer a very rare opportunity to do something that looks this good and all credit to them and adidas for so spectacularly taking that chance here.

 

3) France
Easily the best of the Nike home kits and there are just so, so many reasons for it. We’ve largely enjoyed France’s recent forays into darker navy blues but this return to a more classic French blue reminds us what we’ve been missing. This is the colour France should be playing in, and we are scolding ourselves for being seduced by those fancy darker kits. Then there’s that tricolore collar, which is flawless and best of all a great big giant cockerel on the left breast.

In short, this is absolutely everything a France shirt should be. Plus, the shorts also have great tricolore detailing and the red socks complete the whole thing in ideal fashion. There are a couple of (very slightly) better shirts at this tournament, but this is perhaps the best overall kit. You quite simply couldn’t begrudge Kylian Mbappe and the lads lifting the trophy in clobber this good.

 

2) Denmark
We are always unapologetically biased when it comes to both hummel and Denmark, but there is no need for our inclinations to affect things here because this is just objectively excellent.

Is there any higher praise for any football shirt than to be able to say it looks like it could be from 1988 yet also, for reasons that we can’t entirely pin down, undeniably modern. Everything about this is clean and crisp and lovely. Simple without being boring, retro without being dated. Brilliant. Again.

 

1) Germany
Football kit rankings are a simple game; you w*nk on for a couple of thousand words and in the end the Germans win. We’re still coming to terms with Germany’s impending switch from adidas to Nike, and the fact we’ve still got three years left to get used to it isn’t really helping.

This, then, is the penultimate Germany tournament kit with the three stripes, and it does at least have the good grace to be an absolute belter. Pretty comfortably and fittingly the best adidas effort on show, with that black, red and amber colourway on the sleeves an absolute triumph.

It actually looks a little bit like it’s gone on fire, and to be absolutely clear this is a compliment. Just a very, very good shirt even without the inevitable sentimentality that will surround what kits we have left from this genuinely iconic combination.

Although it would be remiss among all the wailing and gnashing about the end of Germany and adidas’ relationship not to point out that their previous kit, with all black down the middle of it, was sh*t.

F365 Features European Championship