Two of the participants in the upcoming men’s Club World Cup, Bayern Munich and Manchester City, released shirts today before they travel here for the tournament.
FC Bayern’s shirt is, well, certainly something. The ultras attending their men’s games have largely not been fans of the designs from the past few years, bringing banners protesting them several times per season. Club members even managed to get something along the lines of “the club colors are red and white” added to the club constitution a few years ago as a reaction to the increasing use of blue and other colors in first/home designs in particular, such as last season’s black. I imagine they wanted to restrict the club to classic-looking designs.
This design only uses red and white, but I don’t think this is what those members had in mind. It’s almost malicious compliance.
It’s supposed, I think, to look like red and white stripes, but the resulting effect is more like bird shit. This effort is not going to please the skeptics. The shorts and socks are solid-colored, though.
FC Bayern’s men’s team will wear the new shirt at their first Club World Cup game next weekend against New Zealand’s Auckland City, while the women’s team will wait until the start of the next Frauen-Bundesliga season Sept. 6.
If you’re wondering about the stars above the crest, German clubs are allowed to add one for three, five, 10, 20, and 30 championships. The men’s team has had five for a few years, while the women’s team hit five titles for a second star last year.
Manchester City Throws It Back
Manchester City revealed a shirt specifically for this tournament — bizarrely not actually referring to the men’s CWC by name — but the design has a longer history, dating back to the ’70s and having been infrequently revived since. It last appeared for two seasons in a row from 2009-2011. The half-red, half-black sash has a hand-drawn vibe to it this time, as does the number font. A goalie version was also produced (this has been reported as the “away kit,” which appears to be inaccurate) in orange with a black and yellow sash.
Interestingly, City said they won’t wear this shirt until their second game at “this summer’s football tournament in the United States,” as they call it, June 22 against the UAE’s Al Ain. Perhaps their normal sky blue is making an appearance after all.
I suspect that City will use game one to wear their new 2025-26 home kit. As a City fan, I do not love the CWC kit; the team seems to like to do “hand drawn” vibes, and they just never connect with me. But I do like the experiment of shrinking the sponsor logo to fit below the crest rather than across the whole chest.
In Scotland, Motherwell did the tiny ad thing twice in a row (2022-23 with a sash design, 2023-24 with a vertical two-color stripe) and it was well received. But also, someone there clearly Gets It.
I didn’t know that – thanks! And no surprise that the Well would be the pioneer in something so tasteful.
I’m all for reducing sponsor logo, but that positioning under the badge and in the same scale makes it look even more like the club is called Etihad.
Have visions of Haaland scoring the winning goal in the final and trying to kiss the badge, but missing and kissing the sponsor logo instead…
City’s first CWC game is against Wydad on 6/18 in Philadelphia. Wydad wear red and white stripes. City should be wearing sky blue in that match.
Okay, that makes sense.
I think the Bayern shirt is supposed to read and an M but it’s appalling
Actually, you’re right, I scrolled right past that in the news release. I don’t know how well you can see that without being told that’s what it is.
All 7 of Puma outfitted teams will have special kits for the CWC. Most of them are predictably ugly.
Usually I’m an Adidas fan, but that Bayern kit is beyond awful. An embarrassment. This is what happens when teams (or shoe companies) insist on new uniforms every single year. Some decent designs along with some hideous ones. I’d be surprised if Bayern wears those the entire season.
Horrible Bayern shirt that will sell nonetheless to other fans of the team but the hardcore followers. That is how it works with casual fans of a succesful club. As for City, I read that the fine print on the shirt features fans doing the Poznan dance, which I think of as a stupid habit anyway. This semi-handdrawn design trend will hopefully end soon: it reminds me of comic sans serif, just as annoying to the eyes.
The Bayern shirt wouldn’t be absolutely terrible if the white graphic was restricted to the triangle under the collar. As-is, it’s awful.
I don’t understand why Man City are releasing a CWC-specific kit that isn’t in their team colours. And they’re not the only club doing that. The whole purpose of this new format, and hosting it in the US, is to “grow the game”. Wouldn’t it make a lot more sense to have teams in their normal colours to strengthen their brand awareness?
Good question. It looks to me as a short term hit and run money grab intended for the event fans who will watch a game and forget about it, continuing to look for the next diversion.
Fans consistently show they’re willing to buy anything new….no matter how ugly or off-brand it may be. Teams understand this, so they churn out new uniforms every year. If fans stopped buying, this would all go away.
I don’t disagree, but that logic can be applied to just about every new uniform release.
I guess a comparable situation would be a Big Four sports team wearing a non-standard uniform when playing abroad in the UK, Germany, Japan, etc. Not sure if that happens or not, but at least if it does, it’s a one-off event.
This approach for the new CWC (which appears to be driven by Puma, as they’re doing it for seven teams), does not align at all with the purpose of the tournament. If new soccer fans are going to buy jerseys, wouldn’t the teams rather it be their normal kits?
Bayern looks like they’re wearing bibs.
Looks more like Santa’s beard.