Does anyone have any idea why the Japanese national soccer team wears blue shirts? I’ve never really related that color to Japan.
Korea wears red, but Korea has red in its flag. I know that Italy wears blue for historical reasons.
And on a related topic, why does Germany sometimes wear green?
Er, does there have to be an “ethnic” or “historic” reason for the colors of soccer shirts?
Maybe they have sky-blue shirts because the sky is blue in Japan, too?
Just a WAG – but I’d say the colours are whatever shows up best on the ol’ gogglebox TVs at home, plus you can’t have two teams looking similar, so one changes.
This, from a site concerned with Youth Provincial Competition Regulations
I would think there would be some reason for choosing a color. Most teams wearing shirts that are some color of the national flag.
Japan’s Olympic teams tend to wear red or white. I was just wondering why the soccer team chose blue.
Firstly, there’s no rule about what colours teams should wear, apart from the obvious fact that you have to be able to tell the teams apart.
The teams that played international football first (England and Scotland) tended to wear what I would call “PE kit” colours - white shirts and navy shorts for England; navy shirts and white shorts for Scotland. As other teams started playing they either chose colours readily identified with their country, flag colours, or else just some plain uniform of their choice. Red is a traditional colour for Wales, Ireland naturally wear green. As you say, blue is traditional for Italy (through association with the old Italian monarchy IIRC). England did wear blue shirts for one game only - the 1950 World Cup defeat to the USA ;).
Germany wear white and black because its simple. They chose green for their “change” kit because they like green (police cars are green in Germany too). The old East Germany wore blue.
The Japanese wear red and white horizontal stripes to play rugby. My guess is that they wear dark blue shirts for football just because they like the colour, but this press release claims they are “are representative of Japan’s most famous icon Mount Fuji.”
A follow up question I’d like to ask is why the USA (uniquely?) changes its uniform and shirt badge for every international competition. The colours worn by other countries have stayed the same for decades (England and Scotland first played in 1872).
Thanks for the explanation everton.
I figured there had to be an explanation, if it’s not one that makes a whole lot of sense to you or I.
As for the U.S. team, I think the changes are so frequent because the US Soccer Federation is always trying to come up with a uniform that will look “cool” and make people want to buy souvenirs.
The same thing happens with U.S. pro teams in other sports and even the US Olympic team switches from blue to red to gray to white in various Games.
Most likely we should just go around with $$$$ on the uniforms.
This tradition comes way back from the B+W television age. The home playing team plays always it’s own colors, and the visiting team always wears a contrasting color so the teams could be separated easier in the resulting gray tones. (Even at the Championship a team is nominated home/visiting) Maybe this is still the case for poorer countries.
I don’t think anybody is wondering why teams have multiple uniforms - the basic theme there is present in almost all team sports, although details of implementation may differ. The point is to make sure that the teams on the field are easily distinguished.
What makes many Americans scratch their heads in wonderment is soccer teams choosing what would appear to be “oddball” colors for their secondary (or even primary) uniforms.
The US national team (“Hooray for the red, white and blue!”) might appear weird if it took the field wearing orange uniforms, for example. On the surface, Japan wearing blue (why not red?) or Germany wearing green (why not black, red or gold?) seems no less strange - at least, to an ignorant 'Merkin like me who doesn’t see any obvious association between those countries and colors.
While it’s always possible that uniform colors get chosen by taking whatever Nike or Adidas has in their leftover bins, that seems a rather unlikely explanation. 
There’s almost always some reason behind the choice of uniform colors, and I enjoy learning what they are.
That’s what I figured this thread was about, at any rate.
And, since it’s been mentioned but not stated: what is the historic reason for the Italians wearing blue?
How many teams wear blue, compared to how many teams wear red and white?
Maybe that’s why Japan chooses to wear blue. I’ve seen lots of red and white on the field the last couple of weeks, but not a lot of blue (not in the shade Japan uses, anyway).
I’ve been looking on the Net for a better reason why than the Fuji-san reference, but no luck.
Well this site backs up my previous suggestion that blue was the colour of the former Italian monarchy (House of Savoy), and this one confirms it. There should at least be enough information there to start you off on a further search if you like.
After today’s heart-stopper against South Korea the Italians might like to switch to red for the homeward journey. Last time they lost against the North Koreans (1966) they were famously greeted by a hail of tomatoes at Genoa Airport.
Going from memory of the final 8 in the World Cup:
You’ve got
Brazil: Gold and green (not sure of the reverse)
England: Red, I believe the reverse is white.
Germany: White and black, or green
USA: Red or white
Senegal: Green or white
Turkey: Red or white
South Korea: Red or white
Spain: Red or white (I think)
a full list of teams and colours can be viewed here, but to summarise, it’s basically as BobT wrote, except:
Quarter Finalists…
Brazil: change colours blue shirts/white shorts
England: first choice is white shirts/navy blue shorts; change is red/white
Senegal: white/green; change green/white
Spain: red/dark blue; change white/white
USA: white/blue; change blue/white
South Korea: red/blue; change white/red
Germany: white/black; change grey/white (although usually green/white)
Turkey: red/red; change white/white
And for teams already eliminated (predominant colours only):
France: blue/white; change white/blue
Uruguay: sky blue/black: change red/white
Denmark: red/white; change white/red
Slovenia: white/white; change green/green
Paraguay: red & white stripes/blue; change tan/white
South Africa: white/white; change gold/green
China: white/white; change red/red
Costa Rica: red/blue; change white/white
Poland: white/red; change red/white
Portugal: dark red/green; change white/grey
Saudi Arabia: white/white; change green/green
Ireland: green/white; change white/green
Cameroon: green/red; change white/red
Argentina: sky blue & white stripes/black; change dark blue/dark blue
Nigeria: green/green; change white/white
Sweden: yellow/blue; change blue/white
Italy: blue/white; change white/blue
Ecuador: yellow/blue; change blue/blue
Croatia: variations on red & white checks with blue/white
Mexico: green/white; change white/green
Japan: dark blue/white; change white & beige/blue
Belgium: red/red; change black/black
Russia: white/white; change blue/blue
Tunisia: white/white; change red/red
My mistake. I completely missed that in your first post. Apologies and thanks.
For obvious reasons, the shirts of the two teams must be of contrasting colors - is it also a requirement that the shorts and socks be different?
I ask because it kind of seems that way. Everton’s great link shows the USA’s primary kit as white shirts with blue shorts (and the secondary being the reverse of that). However, in the USA’s game against South Korea, they wore white shirts and shorts. Korea wore blue shorts - it would appear that the USA switched to white for contrast, but there are other possible reasons.
That’s a good point brad. They changed the ruling on this in the '80s if memory serves. Prior to that, the overall appearance of the team’s colours had to be obviously different, and the socks had to be different as well as the shirts. Of course that was to make it easier for the ref to see who got the last touch when the ball went out of play.
But the new interpretation said that each individual part of the kit had to be different, including the shorts. I think they wanted to cover the case of the ball going out off somebody’s hip or something. Occasionally you see some odd colour arrangements, such as when Brazil played Costa Rica(?) recently and they wore their regular gold shirts, but with white shorts to avoid a clash with their opponents blue shorts.
The whole issue of “change” or “away” colours is pretty controversial over here. Nowadays clubs heavily market replica kits to fans, and at some British grounds practically everyone in the crowd wears the same shirts as the players (a bit like the South Korea games at the WC now) complete with your name on the back. Having two colours of shirt means twice the sales - most clubs switch the “change” colours every year or so and some clubs even have a third kit, or a special shirt for international club matches. In Italy I believe the Rome club Lazio had six different shirts in one season recently! Parents get pretty pissed off that little Jimmy just has to have the new shirt every season and the clubs have been forced to scale down the frequency of changes. In England, Manchester United were especially strongly criticised for having too many colours, and a couple of board members at Newcastle United were slammed after they were secretly taped laughing at their fans’ gullibility in paying a fortune for shirts made for nothing in Far East sweatshops.
I favour the retro look myself - the cotton jersey my team wore in the '60s.
Nice research everton. As an aside, does anyone else wish Croatia would do something with their checked kit…all I se is a bunch of French bistro table cloths flying around.
It could be worse. The old wavy stripe USA kit (WC94?) made me feel like I was in a roller disco. Thank God Steve Guttenberg never played professional football.
Great info, everton - thanks!
Some of major North American team sports seem to be afflicted with the tendancy to switch uniforms like they were underwear, too. Perhaps not as bad as Lazio, but I start to lose track pretty quickly in basketball and hockey (to my casual eye the worst offenders).
It’s going to be strange on Friday. As I understand it, England are wearing white and Brazil blue. I’d much prefer England in red and Brazil in their traditional colours…shame really.
Why aren’t they wearing the traditional colours? England in white doesn’t actually bother me, but Brazil in anything other than yellow and blue does.