Nou Order’s favourite kits.

Brazil second shirt, France 98

When Brazil headed to France to defend their World Cup title in 1998,  they were almost everyone’s second team.

They’d denied Italy a Roberto Baggio fairytale four years earlier, but it was the Divine Ponytail’s penalty miss that gave the Seleção their first World Cup since they kept the Jules Rimet in 1970.

The Brazil going to France had something new though. Ronaldo. Though a few of the team that would start the final would go on and lift the trophy in 2002, others were soon hanging up their boots.

Ronaldo was set to connect the two eras, and be so good he might help them retain the trophy in 1998 all on his own.

The blue away kit Brazil sported, when laid down flat, had sleeves with the wing span of a commercial jet. It was Nike’s first editions of their DriFit range too. The old could, but new feel.

Va va voom football triumphed on home soil ultimately,  but this advert alone showed Brazil were on a journey. Their defeat in Paris felt like a joyous samba glitch, and this kit a symbol of it, given they claimed their fifth World Cup four years later.

Manchester City away, 2009-10

There was a time when retro kits weren’t contrived efforts to drive social media numbers. Compare Manchester City’s Umbro designed 2009 away kit, with red and black sash, to the recent Oasis collaboration, and you get the point.

City aren’t averse to tipping their cap at the achievements of other clubs and their ensembles. Take their away kit when they entered the European Cup for the first time; an AC Milan inspired red and black striped number.

This effort was made of a nice soft cotton though. It combined design and material to offer a genuine throw back and the placing of the sponsor on this shirt, discretely under the club crest, is a proper nod to heritage.

Red Star Paris, 2020-21

During COVID I was lucky to have a little surplus cash, since we couldn’t go anywhere or do anything. I splurged a bit of that on kits, this Red Star Paris shirt being my favourite among them.

It’s a hipsters choice, I admit, but I was drawn to the club’s story and social values.

After reading this article, I couldn’t do the story behind the kit justice, so I’ll leave it here for you to check out. The advertising campaign is a thing of beauty in itself.

A year later, 777 Partners (the mob who tried to buy Everton and who put Bonza airlines in to administration) took over. Not model custodians of a football club, it has to be said, so much so fans protested against the takeover at the time.

Barcelona home, 2004

As a kid, football is a game in the street you play with other kids. Then you realise it’s abi more organised than that. Your family supports a team, that plays other teams. And there’s competition, which isn’t local, it’s national. No continental.

I Pieces that together in the late nineties when my Grandad brought me a Barcelona shirt back from a holiday there. I had to have one, and in 2004, I did.

Finishing high school and picking up a gardening job, I saved and saved until said Grandad took me to the Nou Camp himself. This shirt literally cost me a week’s wages. Well worth it.

Yarraville Social Soccer Club, 2025

And this brings us to our last entry, which will be revelaed next week. A retro Barca inspired shirt for the ages. Keep an eye on social media and check back here to learn the story of how a member ran social soccer club desinged its first kit, and badge.