Nike Unveils 2022 World Cup Kits

Acting as the technical sponsor of two-fifths of the World Cup teams, Nike is sure to become an ever-present brand in the upcoming international tournament. And it has now unveiled the pair of kits these teams will wear this coming winter in Qatar. The show of strength in numbers (in addition to the calibre of teams sponsored) means that there is a great chance one of these outfits end up as the winning jersey, which would be a fantastic follow-up to France’s 2018 World Cup-winning kit. Even more exciting for the kits is the fact they will be worn by the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo, Kylian Mbappe, Harry Kane, Robert Lewandowski, and Neymar!

Football is Never Done. In fact, it’s just getting started. How will you kick-off your journey? Tap to gear up with national team home and away jerseys. https://t.co/S0awX6UkgI pic.twitter.com/XQXhIdAkI2

— Nike Football (@nikefootball) September 15, 2022

BRAZIL

Brazil has a headstart with its kits, having announced them just last month. Being one of the national symbols, the jaguar is tapped to provide design inspiration and help unify the team and country through the kits. This is evident with the tonal all-over pattern of the home kit, which features the same yellow shade used on the jersey of the Brazilian-winning side exactly twenty years ago. The animal spots also decorates the predominantly blue away shirt, albeit in a smaller scale (a greenish fade on the sleeves reveals the Jaguar spot design).

FRANCE

The defending champions go into the 2022 World Cup with a navy Nike home shirt. It has a clean application of the base colour, with the metallic gold logos and the mini flag strip on the outer side of the sleeve cuffs the other colour details. In additional, a subtle and tonal leaf pattern decorates the collar and cuffs. French history runs deep onto the secondary kit. Vivid drawings in a faded shade of blue abundantly depict several iconic moments and landmarks in France, including the Arc de Triomphe, scenes from the Revolution, and also the cow, a vital component of the nation’s agriculture. The graphics are made clearer as they lean against a white backdrop.

ENGLAND

Narrowly missing out on the Euro 2020 (or 2021, whichever you prefer), England hopes for that elusive major tournament victory to back up its 2022 World Cup kits. Sporting a white base, this Nike home draws much of its sell instead from the gradient colouring on the raglan sleeves. Starting past the shoulders, the white base begins a gradual and faded transition towards blue, starting with a light tone before descending into very deep one surrounding the round neckline. For their away kit, the Three Lions revert back to the familiar red. Showing off a clean look, the secondary outfit bears no graphics design and employs a polo collar.

PORTUGAL

Expect CR7 and company to give it all for their shirts, considering this could be the last World Cup for one of the greatest footballers of all time. Portugal comes in with a home shirt that incorporates the traditional red and green colours in a diagonal half-and-half design. It then accompanies its home kit with a predominantly off-white away shirt. Prominent on the said shirt is the horizontal band running across the chest, divided vertically into red and green. The former is longer and features on the left side of the wearer, and the latter on the right.

NETHERLANDS

Anchored by arguably one, if not the best centre back in the world in Virgil Van Dijk, Holland aims to impress Total Football once again wearing their Nike shirts. The home kit mixes different shades of orange- darker, more traditional orange and a relatively brighter, yellow Laser Orange. The combination produces a fur-like all-over graphic, which obviously takes inspiration from lion being a symbol for the Oranje. Alternatively, the Netherlands participates in the 2022 World Cup with a dark blue outfit. Most of the design comes from the black accents of the panels surrounded by the neckline and the seams from the raglan sleeves and the top arched edge of the main body, as well as the sleeves’ underside, which in turn extends to the side of the torso.

CROATIA

Croatia hopes to do one better than its runner-up finish in 2018, and it has kits that have bespoke designs to mark the occasion should the team end up as the 2022 winners. Kockasti’s upcoming home shirt contains the bespoke red and white checkered design. But while the traditional pattern seem to be straightforward on the raglan sleeves, it appears asymmetrically on the main body, with some of the red blocks missing around the chest and few towards the bottom half. The away shirt is mostly navy, kind of a blackened blue. Standing out from this outfit is the blurry transition of the base to the aqua-tinged light blue checkered graphic towards the top left of the kit. The dynamic between the primary and the accent colours produce an underwater aesthetics to the overall look.

POLAND

Poland for its part aims for a stronger showing than its recent major tournament performances, wearing a white primary strip and a red secondary one. The former’s main design element is the light grey graphic, loosely based on eagle wings, on the raglan sleeves, while that of the latter is simply the singular red striping on white for the sleeve cuffs and round collar.

USA

If USMNT can do the unthinkable this year, its Nike World Cup kits for this year are certain to ascend to US Football immortality. The likes of Pulisic and McKennie are to wear a predominantly white Nike home shirt, whose only other colour details are the boxed panels right below the neckline and the navy and red trims on the sleeves. The away kit is relatively more active though, designing the royal blue shirt with a navy dye graphic.

SOUTH KOREA

Led by Son Heung-Min, generally considered as the successor of Manchester United favourite Park Ji-Sung, South Korea heads into the winter competition with a reddish-pink home strip. The shirt contains a tonal tiger striping pattern along the raglan sleeves (in recognition of the nation’s nickname as the Tigers of Asia), displaying a design element similar to that of Poland’s. The away strip expresses ultimate creativity and spontaneity, designing a black base with abstract spray paint strokes in red, blue and yellow covering the entirety of the kit.

AUSTRALIA

The Socceroos participates in Qatar with its yellow-orange Nike home kit. The shirt displays a subtle graphic design, featuring a spray-paint like visuals (reminiscent of the PSG Fourth 2020/21) on the main body and a spotty, more brushstroke-like on the ragland sleeves. Completing the look is the jade green sleeve cuffs. The reverse kit is relatively dark and quiet as it features in dark blue, with the teal accents on the sleeve cuff piping and neckline panel the only design applied.

SAUDI ARABIA

Mainly white, the KSA’s home kit has a light grey graphic that shows palm leaf patterns similar to the one shown on its 2020 away. A standard shade of green colours the round collar. Relative to the home, the 2022 away has much design and activity. Whereas the graphics on the home are light yet realistic, the visuals on the secondary outfit combine dark and light shades of green for an all-over, camo-forest like aesthetics.

QATAR

Finally, Nike gives host team Qatar with a primary strip in maroon, whose shade falls on the reddish part of the spectrum. part from the centralised placement of logos, the sleeve cuffs carry the shirt’s main attraction, which is the serration pattern separating the primary maroon colour from the secondary colour of white (obviously inspired by the design of the national flag). Unlike the home shirt, the Qatar’s away has an all-over pattern. Random circular overlay pattern in a tinge of gold scatter randomly across the entirety of the light beige shirt.

CANADA

It’s all plain and simple for Canada as it sports an all-red home shirt and and all-white away kit. The outfits do show a Vaporknit pattern on the sleeves as part of the Nike Teamwear template.