The Kits - Group D |
| Written by Chris Ketcham | |||||
| Monday, 09 June 2008 | |||||
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With all the European seasons over and the Champions League trophy resting in Manchester we turn our attention to the European Championship. Albion Road will delve into the triumphs and disappointments of this tournament. The collective national hand-wringing of England upon their failure to qualify is a spectacle in itself. I love all the teams that never seem to live up to their potential and talent level while a scrappy, well-coached outfit like Greece can seemingly come out of nowhere and take the trophy. There are four flavors of kits this season: Adidias, Nike, Puma, and Umbro. Each kit manufacturer has not done all that much to distinguish the designs besides use national team colors.
Group D has Spain looking to be in the best position, or at least that is what Jose Mourino said earlier. Since I tend to root for teams that fail to live up to their potential, Spain is perfect—they have a wealth of talent that never seems to come together when it really counts. As for the rest of the teams in Group D, it’s a roll of the dice. I feel like other teams will be more wary of Greece—just like how the sophomore season of a promoted Premiership team is always hard now that the other clubs have figured them out. Russia and Sweden can play really well or really horribly. I never really know what to expect with them. Spain has my favorite home kit of the whole tournament. It all just comes together well. Adidas has cool numbers and I love the huge team crest for the Spanish national team. I feel the complete opposite about the away strip. What is that gold color and why would anyone want to wear it playing soccer? Yuck! I am not impressed. Russia has a pretty decent white home kit. The well-known “flag-as-stripe” theme shows up once again, but the extra addition of a bit of gold really helps the kit out. I also like the team crest, but it’s a bit odd to think about how many teams out there have their crests influenced by the Habsburg dynasty. The red away kit is not half bad for the same reasons I like the home whites. A little extra white stripe and some interesting trim is all I need to change my usual grousing about red and white kits into a bit of appreciation. Greece, the reigning Euro champs took everybody be surprise. Just like the snooty, over-confident American basketball teams of recent memory, the “good” European countries learned that a well-coached team can trump individual talent. The home kit is nice and simple. Since the Greek flag only has two colors there is not much to work with, but I like what they have done. The away kit has the Greek flag showing up in shadow form. Cool! Not just the dumb wavy lines of the French team I think it’s a nice look. The Crest is dull, but whatever. It’s a well executed couple of jerseys. Sweden is the only team that will be using Umbro uniforms. It’s the same basic design as all of the Umbro kits we see all over the UK’s premiership, with the colors of Sweden. Nice bright yellow home kit, but two colors and not all that exciting. The dark blue away uni’s are more interesting—because there is a hint of a lighter shade of blue and the neck line is interesting. The crest is okay, but it’s not going to save the Swedish team from their mediocre kits.
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The richest clubs in the international world of soccer reside in Europe. With deep coffers, savvy marketing, good scouting, and brazen poaching the big clubs stay big and the small clubs stay small. Football imitates life. Watching the big powerhouse league winners like Real Madrid, Inter Milan, and Manchester United is a study in managers and players finding the right blend of ego, skill, depth, injury recovery, and a bit of luck. In all the major soccer leagues the other big clubs that floundered this year were just as fascinating. Watching Barcelona and Arsenal’s magic style of play die slow deaths with unhappy players and bad luck with injuries, both real and questionable, made this an enjoyable campaign all around. Not quite the same in Germany where Bayern Munich, smarting from their weak 2006-2007 season bought a bunch of top-class talent and reasserted their dominance of the Bundesliga.
