Ranking the best and worst Copa America home kits: a doctor bird, an Ecuador sash and 'deep red wine' (2024)

Adidas

Bit of a mixed bag here. Jamaica’s standard colour scheme is so good that you have to try quite hard to make a mess of it — and the bad news here is that Adidas seem to have tried quite hard.

There’s a lot going on, like they’ve started with a standard template and tried to do too much to liven it up a bit, plus the green on the shoulders isn’t quite right and the background pattern is also very busy, although it does seem to include some nice depictions of the Jamaican national bird — the ‘doctor bird’, or swallow-tailed humming bird. Perhaps a diversion into ornithology in search of some positives is an indication that this kit isn’t great.

Photo:

Adidas

Getty Images

When a kit designer presents to the client a cookie-cutter design from their current template, do you think the team/country involved know it’s a template? Are they fine with it, or do they get a nasty shock a few months later when they discover that their shirt just looks the same as half a dozen others?

If so, Colombia were presumably livid when this one came out, which quite apart from anything else is scuppered by the slightly anaemic red colour on the trim — you want a much bolder red to set off the yellow, as they have traditionally. This would be fine as an away shirt for someone, but Colombia’s home jersey? No sir.

Photo:

Getty Images

Getty Images

We live in a litigious age, and also one where teams are happy to blame pretty much anything else for a defeat other than their own deficiencies. So I wonder, should Costa Rica spring a surprise by beating Brazil or Colombia in their group, if their opponents might consider some sort of legal action against Costa Rica or Adidas for flagrant attempts to hypnotise them.

Because if you stare at this shirt for too long, boy do your eyes and brain start to get a bit fuzzy. It’s like Kaa in the Jungle Book, mesmerising Mowgli and ultimately trying to eat him. Granted, claiming three points in a group stage match is slightly less dramatic, but that’s certainly what this design looks like.

Photo:

Getty Images

Getty Images

This is probably the weakest of Nike’s Copa America shirts, but that’s a bit like saying it’s the worst cuddle with a new puppy that you’ve ever had: it’s still pretty good.

It’s a bit unclear why they have gone for the ‘manufacturer’s logo above the national crest’ approach, when for most of the other shirts it’s been a more classic ‘left and right sides of the chest’ arrangement. Perhaps it’s to emphasise the ‘swoosh’, which according to Nike is modelled on those from ice hockey jerseys of the past. Good, but not amazing.

Photo:

Getty Images

Puma

Assuming your knowledge of Paraguayan culture perhaps isn’t what it could be, a quiz question for you: I will give you £1million, or local currency equivalent, if you know what the diagonal thin blue stripes across this Paraguay shirt represent.

No ideas? Thought not: apparently it represents the traditional Paraguayan harp, which certainly I did not see coming. Come for the snarky comments about kit designs that probably took some very talented people months to draw up, stay for the cultural education.

Photo:

Puma

Getty Images

Traditionalists might object to the prominence of the design on the body of this shirt, but in our opinion it really works. The pattern, which looks a bit like a child’s stream-of-consciousness crayon drawing, but in a good way, brings in elements from ‘musical notes to macaws, from Sugarloaf Mountain to world-famous beaches.’

You could argue that, with the background design, they didn’t need much by way of trim detail but you do need a decent amount of green on a Brazil shirt, and that’s the best place to put it.

Photo:

Getty Images

Adidas

This is how you start with a template design but do just enough tweaks to make it individual, and how you make a shirt relatively simple without it being boring. The colours are nice and bold, for a start, and choosing to have the three shoulder stripes in blue rather than white is a strong choice, just to make it stand out and identifiably Chile’s shirt.

Then you have the background pattern of small diamond shapes with a void in the middle, which initially looks slightly arbitrary but on closer inspection is actually in the shape of the star from the national flag. Hats off.

Photo:

Adidas

Marathon

Ooooh, a sash! Tanks on Peru’s lawn here. Ecuador’s shirts have generally just been yellow with blue trim, but they do occasionally throw in something a little livelier, this being the second time in the last decade that they have deployed the sash, itself a tribute to the design that they sported pretty consistently until around 1980.

It’s a really strong look, bold and relatively simple, although it’s interesting that the back is solid blue, and it will be worth keeping an eye on whether they will actually be allowed to wear that design, since the regulations technically state that the front and back of shirts should be broadly the same colour. Legal beef over shirts: it could be the narrative of the summer.

Photo:

Marathon

Getty Images

Uruguay only got round to releasing their kit a few days before the tournament started, due to some futzing around with their deal with Nike/an ’in-house’ design they intended to wear at the Olympics in celebration of the 100th anniversary of them winning gold in 1924… only for them to not qualify for the Olympics.

But is it worth the wait? Sort of! The temptation with it all being so last-minute (they only confirmed their deal with Nike in April) would have been to go with a template, and it is quite basic, but they have offered a little variation here with the black and white detail on the collar and sleeves. Pretty good, considering.

Photo:

Getty Images

Reebok

Reebok! As I live and breathe. Don’t get many Reebok kits around these days, do you? Very ‘Chile in the late 1990s/early 2000s.’ Still, maybe this is like a Kate Bush album: you don’t get them often, but when they come around they’re all the more enjoyable for their rarity.

And this actually is rather good, with a pleasingly 1980s diamond background pattern giving a bit of zazz to an otherwise plain shirt, along with a subtle gold trim. Nice work, Reebok, good to see you again.

Photo:

Reebok

Getty Images

Yes, very nice. In truth you don’t have to do a lot with Venezuela’s ‘deep red wine and gold’ colour scheme to produce a striking outfit, so from that perspective Adidas have done the right thing by broadly getting out of the way, using a standard template and allowing the colours to do the work.

You can really picture a long ball being launched in Salomon Rondon’s general direction and him elbowing some hapless defender in the face, while wearing this shirt. Lovely.

Photo:

Getty Images

Getty Images

What is going on here, then? It’s the kit that is the biggest departure from a standard design of years past, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

According to Adidas ‘the eye-catching eagle design… takes its inspiration from traditional folk art’… which is good to know, but doesn’t really add or subtract anything from a design that doesn’t really look like a football shirt. And in this case, that’s very much a good thing.

Photo:

Getty Images

Getty Images

Yes, this is great. Let’s start with what can only be described as a ‘flex’, reminding everyone just who the big daddies are with the gold crest and Adidas logo — and if that subtle nod passed you by, then there’s also a great big badge in the middle declaring them as the 2022 World Cup winners. This sort of lording it over your opponents (and let’s be realistic here: by that, we mean Brazil) is to definitely be encouraged.

The rest of the shirt is relatively uneventful but basically exactly what you’d expect from an Argentina shirt: no real frills, the shade of blue is right, the Adidas stripes are blue rather than black this time — otherwise, it’s really all about the flex.

Photo:

Getty Images

Getty Images

There’s nothing particularly unusual about this latest iteration of the Peru kit, but that’s why it’s exceptional. It is one of the enduring constants of excellent kit design, and the only quibble you could make here is that the gold Adidas stripes make it look a bit like a Swansea kit, circa 2015 with the red sash stitched onto it.

But that’s nit-picking: all hail a classic, it never goes out of style.

Photo:

Getty Images

Getty Images

Yessir! A kit that makes you stand up straight and recite the Pledge of Allegiance, even if you’re not actually American. Enough of a clean design to satisfy those of us who care only about the aesthetics, enough of a nod to the red, white and blue and the Star Spangled Banner to satisfy the most fervent of patriots.

In case you were wondering, Nike’s designers took a ‘prismatic approach to refreshing the color scheme for each federation’, according to their press release. It is apparently called ‘metaprism’ — what that means is anyone’s guess, but it involves taking ‘traditional federation colors and augments them through the lens of light and movement.’

Or you could just ignore all that and enjoy a delightful shirt.

Photo:

Getty Images

Marathon

Superb. You don’t get a lot of pale green in the football jersey world — clubs and nations that have green as their chosen colour tend to go much darker or more primary, but this is an absolute delight. You could argue that they have potentially gone for three different details — the hatched pattern on the sleeve, the shoulder panels, the red/yellow/green on the collar — when two would have done, but they’re all so nicely deployed that it doesn’t leave the shirt feeling too busy.

A triumph, well done indeed to Marathon Sports — a rare victory for a non-Nike/Adidas/Puma at a push kit designer.

Photo:

Marathon