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Adidas are once again set to make Liverpool’s kits - we look back at their best work with the Reds.
While most Liverpool fans are probably a little more excited about their chances of winning some silverware this season than they are about the launch of a new kit, the news that Liverpool have once again partnered with Adidas to make their shirts from 2025/26 onwards may be cause for celebration as well.
Granted, the overwhelming likelihood that Virgil van Dijk will lift the Premier League trophy above his head in two months’ time is going to be the single biggest source of joy for the red half of Merseyside this summer – but Adidas have twice been the club’s kit supplier over the course of the Premier League era, and they have Liverpool fans some cracking kits to wear in that time. So in celebration of the rekindling of an old partnership, we’ve picked out our top five Liverpool kits designed by the German giants since football was born back in 1992…
5. Away 1993-1995
Phil Babb models the 1993-95 away kit.Phil Babb models the 1993-95 away kit.
Phil Babb models the 1993-95 away kit. | Getty Images
Liverpool have done a fair bit of experimentation with their away kits over the years, but we’re of the mind that they’re usually at their best when the green gets involved – and this bold number, with Adidas less than shy about stamping their own logo down the sides, was a peach.
It’s the sharp black collar which really sets it all off and it’s a relatively rare example of a shirt which looks even better with the badge and manufacturer centred rather than down the sides. A combination of pleasing symmetry and brash – but not excessive – design flair.
4. Goalkeeper 1995/96
A controversial choice, perhaps. The snazzy (and deeply Nineties) design throws about a dozen different elements into the mix, fusing modern art with something Lawrence Llewelyn-Bowen might have put on his walls after taking some strong hallucinogens.
In truth, we actually prefer the brighter yellow and orange change version of the kit, but we couldn’t find a photo of David James wearing it, so we’ve settled for the black, green and purple first choice version of the design. We suspect some people hate it, but we rather miss the incredibly noisy sensibilities that went into goalkeeper kits in the early years of the Premier League. One gripe – the manufacturer’s name across the collar looks a bit odd.
3. Home 1992/93
Ian Rush in the 1992/93 home kit.Ian Rush in the 1992/93 home kit.
Ian Rush in the 1992/93 home kit. | Getty Images
Mid-Nineties Adidas absolutely loved to make their famous three-stripe logo the centrepiece of a kit design - fortunately, it worked, and wasn’t just the visual equivalent of an outpouring of ego. Some fans may prefer the 1993-1995 edition of the home kit, with the stripes on either side of the lower half of the shirt, but we have a slight preference for this rendition of the idea.
The chunky white stripes coming down the shoulder of a kit with a nice, bright red just feels right, and it’s a design which has seldom been bettered on Merseyside. If we have one gripe, it’s that we feel that it may have gone better with plain red shorts, rather than with the same white stripes coming up from the opposite side. But that’s just us - it’s a great kit, and one which come out in the first year of the Carlsberg sponsorship deal. Their beer might be undrinkable, but Liverpool’s kits have never quite looked right with any other company’s name on the front.
2. Home 2006-2008
Simply put, the Steven Gerrard-est shirt of them all. The midfielder may have played at Anfield for many years but when you picture him, it’s in this kit, even if it isn’t the one that he lifted the Champions League trophy in. Gerrard and this design go hand in hand, somehow.
Adidas did a bang-up job of simultaneously keeping it simple while adding neat design touches - the sleeves are excellent, and the thin bands of white curving down the sides from the collar looked spot on when combined with the kit’s hint of added bagginess. The slightly extra-spacious scale of the shirt constituted a fine design choice in its own right, recalling the elegantly oversized kits of Serie A in the Nineties which was, as we all know, the coolest that football has ever been.
1. Away 1995/96
One of the great Liverpool kits, even if Bristol Rovers are probably owed some royalties. It’s Phil Babb, Steve McManaman, Robbie Fowler, as synonymous with the Spice Boys as the white suits at Wembley. It’s also just a damned nice kit.
The only real question that this kit raises is “why don’t more teams go in for quarters when they look so nice”? Then again, if everyone was doing them then perhaps this wouldn’t strike the same chord. As it is, it’s one of the great change kits in Premier League history, and its only sin is that it inspired last year’s appalling “tribute” from Nike, the one with the blurred edges like it was a computer programme struggling to load. But we can’t blame this beauty for the sins of a future generation, can we?
Related topics:AdidasSteven Gerrard
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