We’re going through all the World Cup jerseys one by one, and reviewing the home and away shirts of each of the 32 World Cup nations. Today we’re getting a look at Germany, and the shirts Michael Ballack, Philipp Lahm, Bastian Schweinsteiger and company will be wearing in South Africa.

The Deutcher Fussball-Bund has a long standing relationship with adidas, which goes back at least 50 years. So I’m surprised they haven’t run out of design ideas yet. But adidas went to the drawing boards last year and came up with a new home and away kit for the German national team.

We’ll take a closer look below, and I’ll do my very best to give you a review of Germany’s World Cup jerseys.

Germany Home Shirt

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Germany home shirts always have three elements. First of all, they are a nice bright white colour. Second, they’re made by adidas and so have three stripes on the shoulder. Third, they usually feature the colours of the German flag – black, red, gold – somewhere in the design. So seems the foundation of any German home shirt is where you put the colours.

This time adidas have gone with three thin vertical stripes down the same side of the jersey as the crest. Not everyone’s a fan, but I quite like the subtlety of it. My one complaint is that in every image I’ve seen of this jersey, the gold doesn’t look quite gold enough. More like a yellow or a sandy colour. I’ll give adidas the benefit of he doubt though, as this may just be to do with the lighting. Or maybe the gold colour becomes deeper when Michael Ballack sweats? (Note to self: Pitch idea for Global Hypercolour jerseys to adidas, Nike and Puma.)

Also, and I swear I didn’t know this before writing this post, on closer inspection you can see that the black, red and gold stripes are part of a bigger pattern of 11 stripes:

Presumably the total of 11 stripes represents 11 footballers, teamwork and so on. Nice symbolism, and I particularly like the way it intersects with the DFB crest, which by happy design co-incidence features three prominent stars for Germany’s three World Cup wins (1954, 1974 and 1990). Makes everything nicely balanced.

Germany Away Shirt

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This came as a bit of a shock. Genuinely wasn’t expecting to see a black Germany away shirt for this World Cup. But that’s exactly what we’ve got. Seems to be a bit of a theme with adidas this year, as they’ve also given Mexico black away shirts.

First of all I thought “cool”. Then I thought “meh”. Because aside from being black, this shirt strikes me as being a little dull. Black body, touch of red, gold stripes. Feels like there should be something more going on.

The one thing I do like is the DFB written in cursive on the back, below the neck:

The home shirt has the same feature, but it doesn’t stand out quite as much. The black and gold makes for a much better contrast with the lettering here, but I still much prefer the home shirt, mostly for that 11 and 3 stripe design.

That’s my take. What do you think of these Germany World Cup kits?