Germany

Germany, Adidas Home 1994/95

With the smaller nations I always like to write up something of their football history, or the country itself, so as to maybe provide some bit of new information to anyone who might stumble across the blog. With Germany though, I can't see a need for any comment on either their football history or socio-political history given it must be one of the most spoken about nations on the planet. Instead, I'll let this piece from Wikipedia cover their football:

 Germany is one of the most successful national teams in international competitions, having won a total of four World Cups (1954, 1974, 1990, 2014) and three European Championships (1972, 1980, 1996). They have also been runners-up three times in the European Championships, four times in the World Cup, and have won a further four third places. East Germany won Olympic Gold in 1976. Germany is the only nation to have won both the men's and women's World Cups. At the end of the 2014 FIFA World Cup, Germany earned the highest Elo rating of any national football team in history, with a record 2200 points. Germany is also the only European nation that has won the FIFA World Cup in South America.

So they're not bad at this football lark.

Turning to this shirt then, and it seems to divide opinion. Search Google for it and you will find a host of "Worst Kits of All Time" coming up with this shirt in them. Though when you look through the comments of these, you'll often find dissenting voices saying they actually like it.  It was introduced for USA '94, which was the first appeaence of the reunified Germany at the World Cup. The most striking feature is perhaps the spray paint effect, which was an Adidas theme at the time (Ireland's away shirt at the same tournament also saw the spray, as well as Ghana's 93-95 shirt). The away version of this didn't have the spray paint effect, despite it being the same template in every other respect.

The shirt burrows slightly from its predecessor by keeping the DFB corporate logo on both sides of the collar. Here, the logo is used on both sleeves too. Speaking of sleeves, this shirt uses another Adidas feature of the era: the single-piece front. That is, there is no seem between sleeve and torso on the front. This makes it quite baggy to wear. The shirt is watermarked by the DFB logo. Indeed, the DBF logo is a bit overused on the shirt.