Global kits rated: The best and the worst outside of the Premier League

Third kit

Oh yes, sir. Inter Miami kits are a slightly curious thing, in that the home jerseys don’t have to do much work in the ‘being distinctive’ stakes, because of their colour. That does allow a bit more license with the change strips, and that has been taken with this gorgeous effort, a sort of baby blue main body offset nicely by the signature pink colour for the trim. Lionel Messi is powerful enough in Miami/MLS to essentially get anyone to do whatever he wants: we would suggest that he uses that power wisely, by getting his team to wear this shirt as often as possible.

Away kit

Part of the idea of Real Madrid is that you’re selling an image. They are, to one extent or another, a conjuring trick, the projection of strength and brilliance even when actual strength and brilliance isn’t necessarily there. All of which creates an ‘aura’ around them, and because human brains are strange things, that intangible thing turns into very tangible things: lots of money, great players and of course stacks and stacks of trophies. And so to their kits, which more often than not are just not especially interesting: take this away kit, with its mid-2000s retro styling and pleasant off-white piping, but is just…quite dull. But millions will buy it and they’ll probably win the Champions League again, so none of that really matters.

Home kit

Yikes. By owner Dale Vince’s own admission, Forest Green Rovers are sometimes a football team, sometimes a vehicle to attract attention, usually for Vince’s eco-friendly causes. Which is fair enough: it’s a darn sight better than some of the things football clubs are used for. But on an aesthetic level, we simply cannot get behind this abomination, a neon leopard print design, like some sort of techno Bet Lynch (for younger readers and Americans: Bet Lynch was a no nonsense character on soap opera Coronation Street, who favoured animal print clothing and withering put-downs). It will certainly attract attention, but then again so will painting your bum blue and climbing up Big Ben: we don’t recommend that, and we don’t recommend this kit either.

Away kit

This features some lovely double symbolism by FC Andorra, the club nestled in the Pyrenees and owned by one Gerard Pique. You’ve got a white shirt, with the three colours of the Andorran flag shooting up the middle of it, which are then topped in the shape of the mountain range that the micro state is in and around. The one quibble would be that in an ideal world the sponsor’s logo wouldn’t interrupt the rising tricolour, but that is a nit pick. It’s a fine combination of clean and simple, combined with a unique element that makes it stand out. Bravo, Gerard.

Home kit

The basics of Genoa’s home shirt mean it is slightly difficult to make it look bad, the deep red and blue halves being a perfect colour combination and thus only a light touch with the trim is required. That said, it doesn’t always look this good. Kappa don’t put out many duds, but this is made particularly special by the ‘deconstruction’ (stick with us here) of the club’s badge, elements of which are then distributed around the shirt: the lion remains on the left breast, the yellow edges of the shield go on the collar and cuffs while the St George’s Cross moves to between the shoulder blades on the back. It’s carefully thought out, on the right side of minimalist and just looks superb.

Home kit

The default era for retro kits has now moved to somewhere in the mid-2000s, in some cases even later than that, so as someone who was very grumpy not to be able to relive my adolescence by gettingtickets to the Oasis reunion shows, it’s good that the 1990s still have a place. This one from Mainz 05 looks particularly good in long sleeves, showing off those splendid fragmented patterns in all of their glory. The background pattern on the main body is also a map of the city, which is a nice little touch. Good work all round, then.

Away kit

The story behind Barcelona’s away kit is probably more interesting than the shirt itself. As explained at more length by Eduardo Tansley and Pol Ballus here, it’s a collaboration with Kobe Bryant’s Nike imprint, the main contribution of which seems to be the colours, which reference the yellow and purple worn by the LA Lakers. It’s a nice marketing exercise, Bryant did genuinely seem to take an interest in Barcelona so it’s not completely random and maybe they will sell a few shirts in Los Angeles thanks to this tie-up…but it’s just quite a boring jersey, isn’t it?

Away kit

What is the definition of a ‘good’ shirt? Is it one that your average man or woman on the street will look at and think ‘that is a nice piece of clothing, with attractive design and well-chosen colours’? Or is it one that elicits powerful waves of nostalgia in its target audience – that club’s fans – who will retain affection for it regardless of how objectively aesthetically pleasing it is? If the latter is true, then this Stoke City away shirt will be an absolute smash, a cult classic that references a shirt they wore in the early 1990s. If the former is true…well, the less said about this the better, really.

Away kit

Over the last decade or so we’ve seen a pretty encouraging evolution in the colours that football clubs and manufacturers are prepared to use for their kits. From Juventus to Inter Miami to this Porto away shirt, we’ve seen a lot more pinks/colours that would traditionally be regarded as ‘feminine’. Whether this is because people have realised that women buy football shirts, or if there has been a progression in the concept of masculinity as related to the colours that male football fans are prepared to wear…either way, it’s good, not least because it produces shirts like this delightful sort of salmon number with a floral background from New Balance and Porto. Bom!

Third kit

The MLS Archives collection did so well last season that Adidas have brought it back for another year, a collection of retro-inspired designs that really are the definition of hit and miss. Some are dreadful (see them all here), and some are sensational: this Seattle Sounders number is loud, gaudy and incredibly busy…but I love it for some reason. It’s so unashamedly brash that you can’t help but admire it. Would you wear it? Well, no, possibly not, but some of us just aren’t bold enough for this sort of action.

Third kit

We weren’t going to bother with Bayern in this piece: the home shirt, ranked in the Club World Cup kits piece, is awful and the away is fairly nondescript. This third shirt though, is much more appealing. It does look a little bit like that Bob Marley inspired Ajax shirt from a few years ago that you still see on extremely pasty five-a-side players around London, and the background pattern does look like those kids’ play mat things that are made up of tessellated foam squares. But it’s lovely nonetheless, and you wish they would wear this one much more than the horror show of a home kit.

Home kit

Puma have done something very simple here, but equally something that in previous years they have found it bafflingly difficult to do: they have produced a Milan home shirt that has well proportioned and equally-spaced black and red stripes. Not much more, not much less. There is a background pattern on those stripes that depicts a devil, for some reason, but otherwise this is simple, effective and identifiably Milan.

Third kit

An absolute beauty. Whether Adidas have deliberately gone for the 1980s tennis player vibe, or whether that was a happy accident hardly matters. This Roma away shirt absolutely sings, a perfect combination of simplicity and artfully chosen colours, a combination of green and yellow that you don’t often see on football kits but when you do…oh boy. The main gripe would be that it’s in no way obvious that this is a Roma kit, even down to the unusual club crest used, but that’s a relatively minor nitpick. When you look this good, none of that matters.

Home kit

In these ratings last year, we included an absolute pearler of a shirt from Spanish third tier outfit Alcorcon. So delighted were they for the nod, they have clearly been waiting for this year’s edition, tagging The Athletic in on X when they announced their new shirt. And while you could view that as shameless pandering, desperately trying to get on the list again, it is a lovely bit of gear (if not quite as good as last year – sorry guys), so therefore makes our collection on merit.

Third kit

The shirt itself is fine – it looks a bit like a Reading kit from the late 1990s, to the point that it really should be sponsored by Auto Trader – and is apparently inspired by the flag of Y Wladfa, the Welsh community in Argentina. But aside from that nice detail, we’ve largely included it here because of the fairly extraordinary announcement video. I’m probably falling right into a trap here of just sharing a United Airlines commercial, but I’m pretty sure I’ve never before seen a football shirt launched anything like this: with choirs in Wales and Patagonia, singing ‘Yma O Hyd’ (a song written by former Welsh politician and folk singer Daffyd Iwan about Wales and the Welsh language that translates as ‘We’re still here’ – watch this and feel your chest expand, Welsh or not from the top of cliffs. A cynical appropriation of national culture in order to sell football shirts and airline tickets? Perhaps. But it is also quite good.

Third kit

Yes please. It’s quite difficult to pull off having gold on your kit: often it looks gaudy and stupid, and you’d be well advised to use it sparingly. But this Flamengo third shirt just about gets away with it, and if there is too much gold here it’s because of the excessive number of sponsors that are scrapping for room on the shirt, rather than its design. But the gold actually does elevate the rest of what is otherwise a fairly simple shirt with a red and black trim, which itself is a good detail because it’s always quite nice when a team references their home colours on a change strip.

Away kit

FC Sorrento aren’t going to be troubling your televisions or attention spans in general, when it comes to actual on-pitch action, unless you’re a Serie C aficionado. But they know that clubs like Venezia don’t really have to be any good at football to get attention, so maybe they are leaning on their desirable location to make themselves one of those fashion clubs, who essentially operate as boutique clothing outlets with a football team attached. To whit, this striking away shirt, with elaborate patterns that evokes ‘the iconic style of hand painted stone tables, adorned with naturalistic motifs typical of the region.’ So now you know.

Away kit

Everything about this shirt is really great, from the simple aesthetics, to the thought that’s gone behind it, to the fact that it references an old kit without just copying it, to that reference being for a reason, not just because they picked something at random. This shirt is inspired by their away kit for the 1995/96 season, which they have chosen because this year is the 30th anniversary of the Riverside Stadium. It’s all tremendously well conceived, looks great and has the right amount of sentiment. Hats off.

Away kit

Does a football shirt need a ‘story’? Should’t it just look appealing? Well, maybe, but when the story is as compelling as this one, it’s justified. If this shirt looks familiar, there’s a good reason for that: this Newport away kit is the result of a collaboration with Athletic Bilbao, recognising a shared history that goes back to the Spanish Civil War, when 4,000 Basque children were evacuated to Britain. Some 56 of those were housed in Newport, so this shirt and collaboration is a nod to them, and the names of those children and others who helped take care of them are stitched onto the stripes of this shirt. A lovely story, and what’s more a lovely kit.

This isn’t a review of a new kit, rather a review of a lack of a new kit: last year Union Saint Gilloise announced that their home shirt for the 2024/25 season would also be their home shirt for the 2025/26 season, going against the norm of the last 25-odd years where pretty much every club has a new jersey for every season. “As a part of our Union Inspires sustainability strategy,” they said at the time, “the new home kit will be worn by our men and women’s team and U23s for two consecutive seasons. Our main aim is to reduce waste and minimise production.” Listen, fair play: this might seem like a relatively minor gesture, and we do confess that by running these pieces ranking and rating new kits every season, we’re contributing to the constant churn of new kits every season, but any club that places other things above jumping on every opportunity to squeeze money out of their fans, is alright by us.