UEFA 2020 Euro Championship – Day 25
The start of the last week of the 2020 European Championship Finals and just three games left, with the two Semi-Finals (Tuesday and Wednesday), culminating with the Final on Sunday. But for now it’s a rest day, so a look at instead the shirt manufacturers that the twenty-four nations have donned in this competition.
Leading the way is Nike with 9 countries (Croatia, England, Finland, France, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia and Turkey), with the German giant Adidas just behind on 8 (Belgium, Hungary, Germany, Russia, Scotland, Spain, Sweden and Wales), with the remaining 7 split between Puma with 4 (Austria, Czech Republic, Italy and Switzerland) and Hummel (Denmark), Jako (North Macedonia) and Joma (Ukraine), all having just one nation to their name.
Sales no doubt of England’s shirts will have gone through the roof, as will replicas from the past, as the Three Lions have made it to the Semi-Finals and expect that to increase even further if England manage to make it to the Final. If they do and went on to win it, the shirt will attain iconic status – but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
It is disappointing to see that Puma have provided a templated approach to the change strips for their teams at this tournament and come in for more criticism from me for a quite eye-wateringly bad colour combo for the Austrian alternate strip. Whilst on the warpath, I’m also not a fan of the Portugal kits by Nike, with the collar and button on the red strip giving it the appearance of a polo shirt and as for the change strip with the weird, coloured bands…eeewwww.
My favourite…well it has to be Denmark’s distinctive red and white Hummel kit. There is something about the chevrons that is standout, and no doubt brings back memories of the Danes 1992 winning the Euros. Its good to see Hummel back in the English market with Everton and Southampton, amongst others donning Hummel strips and I look forward to seeing those designs in the forthcoming new season.
I’ll leave you with a little curious shirt stat from the Quarter-Finals. All the winners wore white shirts…