Is There a Hidden Meaning Behind One of the Most Iconic of Classic Football Shirts?
When Adidas created it, they couldn’t have possibly believed that they were giving birth to a footballing legend. But, whatever the brief to the designer and whatever the thought process, it’s fair to say they absolutely nailed it by creating the most classic of football shirts adored the world over, and arguably the most popular of all time.
A nation’s football shirt needs to achieve a combination of things: heritage, tradition, style and pride. The approval committee is vast with multiple layers of subjective opinion, but ultimately nothing matters if it’s not adopted by the most important of stakeholders - the fans. But, of course, that’s true of any football shirt. A designer’s job when it comes to creating a football shirt may appear easy on the surface, a lifelong dream for some, but it can be quite the opposite. Your work is public, it’s a passion industry and it’s an almost impossible job to get a unanimously positive response from your audience. However, before it even gets to that stage often tens, sometimes hundreds of options are explored before settling on the final design and it can be an exhausting process with creative paralysis reached on multiple occasions. There are rare occasions when a designer curls a 30-yarder into the top corner and unites the committee, fans and all, but the West Germany shirt of 1990 is without doubt one of them.
There have been many theories on the thought process behind it, with some believing that Adidas just wanted to show its national pride of kitting out its home nation by combine its three stripes with the national flag in a more obvious way than running them down the sleeve in its typical but unmistakable way. Some also believe that the designer just got lucky, whilst there is also the strong theory that it was inspired by the unification of East and West. Certainly, the timing of the shirt would align with this view with the huge political wave of optimism sweeping through the nation following the fall of the Berlin Wall the year before and with it, the final World Cup by which Germany would be separated, but is there a less obvious footballing message behind the designer’s tour de force?
Before 1990, West Germany hadn’t been World Champions since 1974 - not that long a wait really in the context of World Cup football - but 16 years at the level of expectation endured by German football is a long time. But if you observe the journey that international football meandered through for West Germany since that famous win on home soil, you start to see a quite familiar pattern.
What immediately followed four years later in Argentina in 1978 was exit at the second group stage as West Germany fell to a string of disappointing results including draws against rivals Poland and Holland, but worse still was the 3-2 defeat to neighbours Austria. Even though in old money, the second group stage was technically like going out in the quarter finals, the manner of the results which led to a lack of progress to a third final in four was hugely disappointing for an expectant nation. Fortunately, for West Germany, this was as bad as it was going to get until they would eventually lift the famous trophy once more. OK, they had to endure the pain of losing back-to-back finals in 1982 and 1986 to Italy and Argentina respectively, but there were signs of progress which indicated that it would only be a matter of time before being crowned World Champions for a third time.
So, if you take this sequence of results between the second crown to the third and map it out as a graph, you’ll see that it mirrors the very pattern emblazoned across Die Mannschaft’s chest in 1990. But was this more luck than judgement, expectation, or just blind faith and optimism? The truth is, we don’t actually know. The fact that the shirt was originally worn at the 1988 European Championships throws doubt on the theory, but the classic football shirt romantic will certainly favour it. In fact, starting in 1982, Adidas redesigned the national shirt every two years so that the team had a fresh look for each major tournament. But, so popular was the ‘zig zag’ that they decided to stick with it for the following World Cup, only changing the away shirt from a green version of the same design to a green adaptation of the equally popular Oranje shirt of Holland and it’s 1988 European Championship success. Whether this was the original intention is doubtful, but such was its popularity, Adidas incorporated the design across other areas of its portfolio with Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester United all getting to enjoy it in their own colours across a range of tracksuits which have been the envy of other clubs ever since. This level of popularity may even explain why Adidas have kept the inspiration behind the famous design to themselves, not wanting to tarnish its widespread appeal. But let’s face it, the theory that the design charts West Germany’s success across those 16 rollercoaster years does have a nice fit.
Ultimately, us classic football shirt fans like to know that there’s a deliberate meaning behind a design; that they tell a story before they’re even worn. But, whatever the inspiration behind this immortal classic, it’s become an icon of the game; something that goes way beyond a football shirt, something that fans on a global level have connected to, whether German or not. Not only that, it even goes beyond football itself - it’s a fashion icon. Because whatever the story behind it, it just looks great and people love it - plain and simple.
What do you think? Was this pure luck over judgement, was it coincidence, or was it based on a nation’s hopes and dreams? Do you have any other theories, or do you have any insider insight which could either prove the theory right or otherwise? Let us know in the comments below.