2014 FIFA World Cup

[Soarindude]

More claims come to light about the Qatar world cup bid.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/27652181

USA USA USA!!!

[gdu]

[Bayne]

Nice. It's got a touch of the Germany 2006 world cup ball which is one of my personal favs.

[razorback447]

Perfect.

[GFB]

I really like this WC ball... My only quibble is that instead of the red panels, they had used yellow to complete the blue-green-yellow Brazilian color scheme.

[Maglie]

The new Bosnia kits officialy unveiled :

[Berlin Wall]

Even if these are just standard templates, they doesn't look bad.

[VictoriaGooner]

I was hoping for more from Adidas with Bosnia's inaugural appearance in the World Cup. The kit kind of reminds me what some teams in my local adult Div 1 league play in. No creativity, no imagination.

[Berlin Wall]

I was hoping for more from Adidas with Bosnia's inaugural appearance in the World Cup. The kit kind of reminds me what some teams in my local adult Div 1 league play in. No creativity, no imagination.

They are actually kinda like the 2010 Slovakia.

[VictoriaGooner]

They look a lot like 2010 Slovakia kits...why does Adidas recycle lesser country kits?

[MJWalker45]

Because they waited to change at the last minute. They were still wearing Legea as of Saturday. I'm surprised they hadn't made the full switch by now.

[Jack Holmes]

Adidas' range of kits for this World Cup are almost all horrible. Spain, Mexico, Japan and Russia all have fine home kits, but their clash stuff is putrid. Germany look atrocious, home and away. Bosnia, Columbia and Nigeria look like MLS or Div 1 teams. Argentina are the only country they've done justice to. A really poo effort from Adidas.

[sickboycool]

Adidas' range of kits for this World Cup are almost all horrible. Spain, Mexico, Japan and Russia all have fine home kits, but their clash stuff is putrid. Germany look atrocious, home and away. Bosnia, Columbia and Nigeria look like MLS or Div 1 teams. Argentina are the only country they've done justice to. A really poo effort from Adidas.

I agree that it is a really poo effort by Adidas. Although both of Mexico's kits are atrocious and Russia's clash kit is just fine. Germany's away is decent.

[Bayne]

Germany away is alright, Argentina home is nice enough and Russia home is great. Apart from that though...

[aawagner011]

Saw some shots of Brazil practicing ahead of their opening match tomorrow and they were wearing the full alternate kit with printed kit numbers. It's very sharp, in my opinion. What are the odds that we actually see it in the tournament?

Edit- here are the patches all teams will wear. Didn't they do a similar "Hope" patch in 2010?

[jr79]

Australia will wear their home yellow/gold shirts in all 3 games, but will be paired with yellow/gold shorts for their opening game according to the official twitter account. Yellow/yellow/white does not add up to an attractive kit. The white socks only work with the green shorts to divide the yellow and white.

[gdu]

I believe Nike/Brazil already came out and said they wouldn't be wearing them in any games at the WC.

[Bouj]

Wow, neither team is in monochrome. Who'd have thought?

[Berlin Wall]

This is one nice matchup!

I would've bet that Brasil would go with blue socks and Croatia with white ones. I'm glad it went the other way round.

[seattlesonicsofsacramento]

Now that I've seen all the jerseys on The Score, I just wanted to share my thoughts on which ones I especially liked (leaving out obvious classics like Brazil and Argentina's primaries, although I think Argentina's is one of many victims of adidas's shoulder stripes template, with them in black being all the more detracting, even if that was done to match the traditional shorts).

My favorite:

Germany (primary kit): I don't know what the chevron has to do with Germany (other than Wikipedia telling me it was used on Nazi SS uniforms), but the colors are great and work so well with the rest of the jersey (even the adidas stripes, for which Germany is the only team allowed to be given a pass), and that chevron houses the brand and national association logos so well that the whole look just comes together perfectly for me.

Other favorites:

U.S. (primary kit): Big fan of this jersey, apart from it being a polo, which I don't approve of for any sports jersey. Let's make this sort of minimalism "the looK" that we can consistently represent ourselves in for each World Cup (now that we've done it two cups in a row). And at first I was skeptical of the triangle print inside the collar, but seeing this stars one in combination with the stripes one on the secondary makes me think it was a cool added touch.

Iran (both kits): I want to love these so much more than I already do (almost my favorites of the tournament). On the primary you have the solid horizontal chest stripe with the brand name on it, and the asymmetry (although there's that weird triangle dropping down from the collar to break into the horizontal stripe). On the secondary you have that interesting sublimated block pattern on the chest that I think unfortunately gets washed out by those shades of red and green. And then of course the sublimated Asiatic cheetah on both of them, which I know is going to be controversial for those opposed to big logos and sublimated logos, but that I absolutely love and hope that Iran finds success with this kit so their national team can be nicknamed the Cheetahs or something. btw, is the reason Iran is using a unique designer and being forbidden from swapping jerseys because of embargos?

Costa Rica (both kits): I'm definitely not feeling the collars, and the shoulder stripes/connecting waves seem weird to me (though I'm warming up to them), but these are some eye-grabbing uniforms.

Honorable mentions:

Greece (both kits): Not every team can do something simple like a blue and white kit, but Greece is the one, and it's classy as hell, even though it's a polo.

Belgium (both kits): Bold looks that I know a lot of people aren't gonna like (at least with the primary). I'm in love with the asymmetric horizontal chest stripe on the primary, but I wish it went farther across, forcing the national association crest to be placed more on the heart. The coloring in this pic makes the sublimated crown look almost purple to me, like the same color as the top chest stripe, which seems off among these other colors. However, the secondary adds that gold in beautifully; I just wish they had stuck with a bi-colored collar (burgundy and gold).

France (both kits): I want to love how simple and elegant these looks are, even if the whole "denim" reasoning and coloring is weird, and even though I don't like polos.

Ghana (primary kit): The contrast (not just in color, but in gaudiness vs. minimalism) makes the pattern pop, as opposed to the sublimated pattern on the secondary and other sublimated patterns that we see on other teams' jerseys. (And thank you Puma for no torso piping.)

Nigeria (secondary kit): The double green collar is iffy, but the light green works well on rest of all that white, and for some reason those thick shoulder stripes work well with the usually intrusive adidas stripes.

Russia (secondary kit): The primary has a nice concept too, but I think the secondary really nails it, along with looking more Russian to me.

Dishonorable mentions:

adidas: Horrendous shoulder stripe templating, out-of-place-everywhere "electricity" color.

Puma: Similar templating faux pas with the torso piping (I want to like Italy's red and green piping and Uruguay's gold, but even those just don't work), even if I sort of like the semi-circles on the cuffs.