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Football strips were originally worn to differentiate team players - after all, you could quite easily pass the ball to the opposition if they had the same colour shirts as your team. But over the years, strips, and especially shirts, have taken on new significance.
There's the commercial importance of them, of course; clubs and national football associations/federations can earn millions from contracts with the kit manufacturers and from direct sales of shirts to fans. It's become a custom in the last couple of decades to buy and wear the latest shirt of your favourite club or your country.
Then there's the aesthetic factor; some shirts and strips are simply extremely pleasing on the eye. For example, Brazil's famous yellow shirts, blue shorts and white socks are as near a perfect combination as you could get, and spark an immediate association with football as being, in the great Pelé's words, 'The Beautiful Game'. You only have to think back to greats like Pelé himself, Garrincha, Socrates and nowadays the likes of Ronaldo, Ronaldinho and Robinho, all wearing the sublime strip, for this association to click.
And naturally, national team strips are also national symbols, the colours that whole populations get behind, notably during that magical summer month every four years when the World Cup comes around. They become, if you like, flags on the backs of a country's favourites, and the players themselves commit to performing a duty for their country, often kissing the shirt as if it were the flag.
The colours of some national team strips reflect directly the flag of the respective country. France wear red, white and blue, Switzerland red and white, Angola red, black and yellow, Portugal red and green, etc.
It's odd, though, that the strips of other countries often bear little or no resemblance to the national flag. Returning to Brazil for a moment, all of the colours of the flag can be found in the strip, but strangely, the predominant colour on the flag is green, and there's very little yellow: only the central diamond, almost obliterated by a blue globe. Why, then, is yellow the predominant colour of the team strip, with green appearing only on the shirt collar and cuffs?
Similarly, other countries' strips almost correspond to the flag, but not quite. England play in white shirts with dark blue shorts and white socks, with some red trim. Some may think that this does indeed correspond to the English flag, but they will be thinking of the Union Jack, the flag of the United Kingdom, taking in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, which all have their own national teams. No, the flag of England is a simple red cross (the so-called St. George Cross, after the country's patron saint) on a white background, colours that are actually reflected in England's second strip. So why the blue shorts in the main strip? Well, theory has it that the colour blue is present in the English FA badge, and so that is why it is there when the team run out onto the pitch.
On the other hand, there are some countries whose strips appear to have nothing whatsoever to do with the colours of the flag, but there are reasons.
Why, for example, do Italy, whose national flag is red white and green, play in blue? Well, that's because blue is the colour of Savoy, the ruling house of Italy from 1861 to 1946. When the Italian Republic was established in 1946, the tricolor was adopted as the national flag, but the blue remained for the sporting teams.
If you would like to practise your English, try the following activites:
Matching names to colours (easy)
Colours reading comprehension (easy)
Prepositions (medium)
Other choices of strip colour are also rather baffling: Why are Spain's shorts blue? Why do Germany play in white? Why orange for Holland? Where does Australia's yellow and green come from? (see below) And Japan play in blue shirts; what's all that about?
If you have the answers to these questions, please let us know. Also, let us know your favourite national strip, and why.
Cain Durkin writes "Australia wears green and gold to represent its two most famous pieces of flora - "The green gum tree leaf" and "the yellow wattle bush flower", which are found all over Australia. Australia's colour used to be blue and gold (for what reason I don't know) and the country's alternative strip of royal blue with white lettering is representative of the flag. The blue representing the water that surrounds Australia and the white represents the stars in a our flag."
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