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2018 World Cup Concept Series (Nov 15, KOR & SUI)


FlyingLamprey

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FRANCE

While I probably messed up on Bulgaria, I did not mess up on first place in that group - France!  The hosts/runners-up of this summer's European championship have been on a tear lately, losing only one (hi Portugal!) and tying two (hi Switzerland and... Belarus?) in all of 2016.  They sit comfortably in a tie for 1st with Sweden in their qualifying group, and it'd be a shock to see them miss out on the World Cup.  Regardless, I kept things classy for the French.  The logo is the more traditional coq gaulois that the FFF has been using recently (which is the better of the two for sure).  The home kit is a navy/white/red affair with double pinstriped hoops on the jersey - again, keeping it classy.  The clash kit is simple but more modern - a white/navy/white combination with a unique center stripe.  A gradient in the colors of the French flag stretches across the chest, done as a sort of homage to the wild 2006-8 clash kit.  I wanted to do some fun stuff with the sleeves, but UEFA doesn't like it when people mess with that, so this is what I came up with.  Nike's on contract until 2018 so they remain the manufacturer here, and the names on the back are of Paul Pogba and André-Pierre Gignac.  

 

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Drink water and try to have fun!

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6 minutes ago, hendocfc said:

I don't think Adidas are going to use the tri-chevron in '18 lol apart from that,this series have been great! 

 

Yeah I don't imagine Adidas using the tri-chevron design much beyond this cycle.  Here's why I included it though - smaller clubs/nations always seem to get the templated designs in a "second wave", often a year or two after it was used on big clubs and countries.  Think about all the teams that got the 2014 (BOMB POP!) and 2015 (the one with the kinda odd gradient) US away kits a good year or two after - Tampa Bay Rowdies, FC Cincinnati, San Antonio FC, Houston Dash, FC Kansas City - the list goes on.  That's why I've included this template look to Egypt - they probably wouldn't get as high of a billing compared to some other countries.  So while it's not super likely to happen, I've included them since past history suggests it could happen again.  I've also done this with one other Adidas team and at least two Nike teams.  I thank you for your concern, though!  I definitely took that possibility into account when making this series.

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3 hours ago, miker said:

Where's England?

I think he's putting England as Great Britain. Anyway awesome job so far. My only hopes are that Scotland Italy and the US (mostly the US. The other two are a toss up) make it. And I may use (by that I mean REFERENCE NOT BLATENLY COPY) these as inspiration for an A1GP thread (to come soon)

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Thanks everyone!  Silence of the Rams, as long as you mention the inspiration I'm good with it!  I'm gonna roll along with two more European teams today.

 

GERMANY

Germany!  The reigning World Cup champions are back in after an up-and-down 2016 - a rough start with losses to England and Slovakia was offset by a semifinal finish at the Euros and 3 wins to kick of WC qualifiers.  Aside from the rest of Group C being in chaos (Azerbaijan is doing well!  Czechia isn't!), Germany has been the stable Death Star that they've been as of late, and I'd be totally shocked if they missed out.  Fun fact: this was the first team that I did in this series!  The logo remains the same by principle of being one of the best federation logos in the world.  Kits stay fairly familiar as well - the home kit follows the basic pattern of white/black/white.  The notable feature here, however, is the gradient German flag that comes out from behind the federation logo.  This is a sort of callback to the 2008 (one of my favorites) and the 1988-90 home kits.  For the clash kit, I went for a bit of a mix of everything.  I brought back the traditional green (albeit darker than normal) and added sublimated hoops (2012 and 2014 clash kits).  Notable changes are the all-green look instead of the traditional green/white/green, the hoops being made of lozenges like the Bavarian flag, and accents being in a light green color that's close to mint.  As has been the case since the 50's, Adidas is the jersey manufacturer, and the names are those of Thomas Müller and Mesut Özil.

 

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ICELAND

It's very hard to articulate why I like to see "the little guy" succeed in big moments, but the past couple years have been great for non-traditional powers succeeding!  Portland Timbers, KC Royals, Carolina Panthers, etc etc etc.  However, nobody has quite exceeded expectations quite like the national soccer team of Iceland.  They've been doing well over multiple years too!  They were two goals short of beating Croatia in a playoff for the 2014 World Cup!  And then qualifying for the 2016 Euros rolled around and I went "How did Iceland get all 9 points in their first three games?", because they totally did that!  In a group with the Netherlands, Turkey, and the Czech Republic, Iceland finished in second and would've finished first if they didn't drop their last game to Turkey!  And then they go into the tournament, tie Portugal, tie Hungary, and beat Austria to finish second in their group on goal differential!  And then they go and beat England in the round of 16!!!  A game so famous that it has its own Wikipedia page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/England_v_Iceland_(UEFA_Euro_2016)) and caused the almost immediate firing of Roy Hodgson as England's manager!  AND THEN THEY well okay they got crushed 5-2 by France in the quarterfinals but France was really good during the tournament!  And now they sit in second in their group after tying Ukraine and beating Turkey and Finland (they'd probably be in first if Croatia didn't drop 6 on Kosovo but whatever).  Iceland, a country of around 323 thousand, is in a very good place right now, and the phrase "World Cup participant Iceland" is close to reality at this point.  By the way, if they did qualify for the World Cup, they'd be the smallest country to ever participate in a World Cup by a large margin (next closest is Trinidad & Tobago, population 1.3 million, who somehow made it to the 2006 World Cup and tied Sweden).  I have them winning their group, so I'm pleased with what I've seen so far.  So let's say Iceland pulls it off.  They're going to need a big update visually, as their current logo and uniforms are not at a good quality at this point.  So I went and gave them new everything!   This was probably one the hardest logos for me to figure out, but after a lot of consideration and trashed drafts, I came up with this.  The shape is based on the national flower of Iceland, the white dryas (or is it the mountain avens? I see it used as both but I'll go with the dryas for now), and the petals are colored like the Icelandic flag.  The center is replaced with an old-fashioned soccer ball, and yes, I'm aware of how odd it is to give a team that's only been relevant the past few years an older ball, but it looks so much nicer and I had done enough modern soccer balls by this point.  The ball contains the abbreviation KSÍ (for the federation), and the outside contains the federation name in both Icelandic and English.  Also, I need to mention how Icelandic is one of the weirder Latin-based languages that I've encountered (like "knattspyrnusamband" is a Boggle puzzle at first glance).  It's up there with Welsh and Basque for sure.  BACK TO THE SERIES THOUGH, I also added a picture of the new logo since there's a lot of smaller details.  I don't normally specify which fonts I use, but I chose Fragile Bombers to give it a look that reminds me of Anglo-Saxon runes.  Granted, there were probably better choices for that look, but this one was also legible, and that's bonus points!  The jerseys are a little bit of classic, a little bit of modern.  The home kit is all blue with modified white/red/white hoops, kind of similar to their Euro kits.  I originally had a cross mimicking the Icelandic flag, but I eventually realized that I was just making Denmark again, so I opted for the hoops.  Speaking of, they're on the socks too!  Just to complete the look.  The clash kit is a lot more modern, with the white shirt featuring an iceberg-based gradient that transitions to light blue shorts.  The gradient carries over to the socks, which are predominantly white.  It's all topped off with blue accents (which look kinda weird on the shorts but it was the best solution).  Three other notes about the jerseys: 1) Used the same font as the logo; 2) the logo on the jerseys is just the flower and ball; 3) First names!  Since Icelandic surnames are traditionally "father's first name" + "son/dóttir", the first name is normally used formally.  This is probably a good thing for the Icelandic national team to adopt (I remember reading somewhere that they used to do this but I could be wrong), so I've gone and changed the NOBs to reflect this.  Lastly, manufacturer.  If Iceland does make the World Cup and retains their success, they might want a bigger brand than Errea.  Cue Under Armour.  They've only recently broken onto the soccer scene, but they work with a good number of famous teams - Tottenham, Villa, Southampton, St. Pauli, AZ,  São Paolo, Cruz Azul, NY Cosmos, etc.  As such, I thought the union of two groups on the rise would be perfect, and that's how I have Iceland becoming Under Armour's first national team.  The names are those of Aron Gunnarsson of Cardiff City and Birkir Bjarnason of Basel.

 

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21 hours ago, hendocfc said:

Not a fan of the Germany concepts... Iceland,though... 

 

Thanks a lot!  I had a feeling the Germany concept might get a little pushback (the Bavarian pattern is a little weird and the mint comes out of nowhere), but I put that on Die Mannschaft being the first team I made.  If I ever go back to change stuff, the German clash kit would be one of the first things to tweak.  Thanks for your input!

 

I just realized this, but Iceland marked the halfway point for this series!  Thank you all for your support over the past 8 days, and keep the C&C rolling!  I've got two more coming 'atcha today to start the second half, so keep your eyes peeled for those!

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IRAN

The Iranian national team has had... some success as of late?  It's a little up and down.  They've made alternating World Cups since 1998, haven't made it out of the Asian Cup quarterfinals since 2004... it's a little back-and-forth.  So will they make the 2018 World Cup?  As things currently stand, I'd say so.  And that's not just because I had them winning their group in my numbers, because they're winning their group right now!  Wins over South Korea, Uzbekistan, and Qatar (along with a boneheaded draw to last-place China) have them sitting in first in their group, and as long as they don't do anything stupid against Syria in a couple weeks, they'll head into the halfway point in first as well.  As such, I feel pretty confident about Iran finishing out strong and making the World Cup consecutive times for the first time.  The logo is technically changed, but it's so minor - I removed the "Iran" text on the soccer ball that stuck out like a sore thumb.  Other than that, I had nothing to change.  It's not the greatest of logos, but I found it passable enough to not require an overhaul.  For the jerseys, you might immediately notice something - no Asiatic cheetah!  This is something that I wish I would've added to the kits, because it's such a cool detail.  For those who don't know, Iran's jerseys since 2014 have featured the Asiatic cheetah to raise awareness of the endangered animal.  As someone who is a big fan of wildlife and such, I love this idea!  I really really do!  And yet I didn't include them here for bad reasons - I couldn't find a good way to add them that didn't result in me wanting to tear my hair out and/or having the process last longer than a week (which is a long time if you consider that I can run through a jersey concept in under an hour most of the time).  The other option was to make a new logo for the federation featuring the cheetah, which would also be extremely painful.  So believe me, I really wanted to add them!  I just couldn't figure out a way that didn't involve excruciating pain for me, and for that I apologize.  "Okay that's cool and all but why not add a cheetah spot pattern to one of the kits?"  Well, that'd be because I didn't think of that until right now, and I wish I had thought of that sooner because that's a great idea!  I'll post this for now and see what I can come up with today that incorporates that.  For now though, let me walk you through these kits real fast.  The home kit is a traditional all-white with red accents, featuring a flag-inspired sash that takes inspiration from their 2008-09 kits.  The clash kit is a mimic of the same template look that Egypt rocks, just in red and white.  This was the second of the two kit manufacturer changes that I had to deal with (the first being Denmark), as Iran signed a deal with Adidas in the middle of the series.  Granted, I wasn't gonna keep them with Givova (I was gonna have them be Puma!), but I guess Adidas works just as well (and gives me one more Adidas team than I wanted, thanks guys).  The names of those on the jerseys are Jalal Hosseini and Ashkan Dejagah.  
 

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IRELAND

Ireland's in the World Cup!  Éirinn go Brách and all that!  Yes, Ireland has been drawn into possibly the toughest group in Europe for qualifying - Serbia, Wales, Ireland, and Austria all had fairly good chances of winning the group (also poor Georgia and Moldova, this is a bad group to be stuck in).  Regardless, I am confident that the Boys in Green can make it to at least second in their group.  They're probably also helped by my bias - I love Ireland!  One of my favorite trips that I've ever taken was to Ireland, and it certainly doesn't hurt that Robbie Keane is one of my favorite players.  So, Ireland's in!  What gets changed?  Everything!  Starting with the logo, the current FAI logo and identity is, to put it lightly, a mess.  So many different geometric parts that don't fit well together.  So I ditched everything but the shape (it's a nice shield shape!).  I changed the "Ireland" text from a straight line to a curve fit to the shield.  In lieu of a soccer ball, I considered many options, including the harp from the country's coat of arms.  Ultimately, I settled on the shamrock.  When making the logo, I had an immediate idea involving a shamrock.  However, I was very hesitant to use it on the basis it possibly being stereotypical, which is a valid concern I feel.  After all my other ideas ended up not working out, I found out that the Irish rugby union team actually uses the shamrock prominently!  Combined with one of Ireland's biggest teams being Shamrock Rovers FC, I reasoned myself into the thought process of "the shamrock is fine".  And it does look good!  The protruding shamrock with the FAI initials being on each leaf looks great!  However, if any people that actually live in Ireland want to suggest something better, I'm all for it!  For now, however, it's sticking like this.  For the jerseys, I went with a traditional look befitting the country.  The home kit is traditional green/white/green, with the notable feature being the white and lime pinstripes on the collared shirt and socks (based off the 1983-84 and 2012 kits).  It comes off a little weird with how it works on the back, but this was the best option (the solid back looked too weird, and UEFA likes their legibility so going all the way wasn't gonna work).  The clash is a reversal of the home colors and features a thick green sash (with a similar stripe on the socks).  Umbro's signed on until 2020 at least, so they stick around for now (man both my Umbro teams have good socks).  The names are those of Séamus Coleman and Kevin Doyle.

 

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Here's a quick update to Iran that includes sublimated cheetah spots.  The home kit features it all over the front of the shirt, while the clash contains it within the chevron.  I definitely like this a lot more!

 

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Thank you everyone for your suggestions!  For Iran, I did try to find a way to include green, but I ended up coming up short.  I can try figuring out something new for the clash kit (I have something in mind I'd like to test), but with how the current home kit is, it might be hard to include green there.  Since you suggested it, @kerlonmoura, do you have any ideas on what could work?  My only idea there is to change some of the spots to be green-based and red-based so it forms the Iranian flag.  And for Ireland, @Victormrey, I was actually very close to using orange instead of lime in the pinstripes!  I ended up not including them because I didn't really like how it looked - it was too distracting for my tastes.  The lime makes it a bit more subdued, and besides, this gives Ireland the opportunity to embrace lime as an accent (which I don't think many national teams use).  It's sort of a personal preference thing, and it matches the flag, so I totally understand where you're coming from!  I just like it better with the lime!  I hope you understand my reasoning.  Also, doing all three for the pinstripes is a no-go, because WOW that's not a good look.

Thank you all for giving me new ideas, though!  I really appreciate it a lot!  I'm gonna continue rolling through these teams with two of my favorite designs.

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ITALY

Italy was an easy choice for me.  Could it be that I'm three semesters deep into learning Italian?  Mmmmmmaybe.  I've always had a soft spot for Italy and Gli Azzurri, however.  Maybe it was because the first time I payed attention to soccer was the 2006 World Cup final where Italy won (and other things happened too, hi Zinedine Zidane!).  Regardless, Italy's in a pretty good spot right now.  Yes, they're drawn in a group with giant powerhouse Spain, scrappy Israel, and rising star Albania.  Their first few games, however, have given me enough to believe that they can still finish first in their group as I had projected.  Beating the teams you need to beat (Israel and Macedonia) doesn't hurt, and a 1-1 draw with Spain is nothing to be ashamed about (they sure gotta be looking to make up some goal differential against Liechtenstein after Spain dropped 8 on the tiny country).  As such, I'm sticking with this process and putting Italy first in their group.  Logo stays the same, and why wouldn't I?  It's a classy logo.  The jerseys aren't anything radical either.  The home kit is based off the clash kit from the 2016 Euros, which is a really nice kit!  Shame it didn't last long.  An Italian flag-based center stripe sits on the traditional Savoy Blue shirt with white shorts and blue socks.  I also made the break in the flag for the number in a ribbon-like shape just to spice it up a tiny bit.  The clash kit is very simple - white shirt, blue shorts, and white socks.  Oh, except for the sleeves.  Lemme explain.  Italy was the first Puma team that I did, and as such I was looking at what Puma has been doing with their jerseys.  One thing that stood out was Arsenal's yellow-and-great clash kit that features striped cuffs.  I liked this idea, and as such I added an Italian flag pattern to the cuffs.  It's a clean look for sure, and I'm very pleased with how it turned out.  As mentioned, Puma remains as Italy's kit manufacturer, and the names are those of Daniele de Rossi and Sebastian Giovinco.

 

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