The Greatest Day of the Year

By: Brian | May 29th, 2008

Forget who we are signing, who’s starting, or who we are playing and get to the truly important stuff.

What are we wearing?

We’re big kit fetishists here at the Werder Offside and generally get way too excited when we see newly designed shirts, shorts and socks rolled out to the public. We spend way to much of our time thinking about and critiquing the good, the bad and the surreal.

Wednesday was then therefore one of our favorite annual events, the day that next season’s kits are revealed. Last year’s were frankly excellent and some of the best Werder have ever worn, especially in the past decade. So how will the clothing of 08/09 compare?

Home

In recent years Werder has gone with the half n’ half, quarters, the diagonal stripe and other standard kit design motifs, with mixed results. This year it is the horizontal stripe across the chest. Kudos to the guys upstairs for not simply trotting out green over white at home and white over green on the road, but overall, the shirt is a bit of a letdown. There’s nothing overtly poor about it, but it just seems a little…meh.

The green stripe is in a bit of a strange place, not high enough to work in conjunction with the sleeves, but not low enough to contain the sponsor’s logo. It kinda lays awkwardly the chest and bunches up around the armpits. It also looks a heckuva lot like the recent Mexico shirt designed by Nike with much more attention to detail.

Call us traditional, but we’ve always been fans of the club badge being over the left breast. It’s just where it belongs. Although a centered crest is technically, in fact, over the heart, it just shouldn’t be there. Much less over sized. And I hardly need to point out that the kappa logo that travels up a 45 degree angle on the right front is dreadful. Add in the star and all in all it’s a whole lot of stuff crammed into the upper third of the shirt.

Shorts and socks remain relatively unchanged. Stitching seems a bit more prominent, but they remain fairly solid. Citibank is till the sponsor. Light years away from KiK and Young Spirit.

Away

So you bought the beautiful 07/08 home shirt in the team shop last year and want to remain current, but don’t have another 70 Euros to drop? You’re in luck. In a stroke of brilliance (or extreme frugality), last year’s home kit is next year’s away kit. Just get that ironed on “Borowski” peeled off of the back and “Prödl” added.

Event

Upon what side of the third kit fence do you fall? A great way to differentiate a special cup run or playing in European competition? Or yet another obvious fleecing of the hardcore supporter? Regardless of your opinion on the necessity of an event kit, you can only reasonably have one opinion of these particular kits. They are dreadful.

They are black. 98% black. Black third kits have worked for other clubs in recent years, but not executed like this. This is muddled, clunky black. There’s not a whole lot of cohesion between the shirt, shorts and socks. Lose the green trim and go with white. Keep the socks mostly black instead of the blocks of color we have here. It’s a nightmare from top to bottom.

But then again we hated last season’s grayish green event kits and grew to begrudgingly like them, fluorescent green and all.

Keeper

The yellow kits stay, which are quite tasteful and a nice contrast to green, being complementary colors and all. The red and orange kits are a travesty which will hopefully never see much action. Both Wiese and Vander have shown a preference for the yellow shirt and will hopefully be able to refrain from wearing the alternative. And why would kappa create a shirt that looks incredibly similar to those worn by another club that they suit up?

The Bad

The Werder Offside would like to officially join thousands of fellow Bremen supporters in our opposition to the continued use of the color orange in association with Werder. Orange is not a Werder color, never has been. Werder is green-white and that’s fine. There shouldn’t need to be the addition of a third accent color for increasing shirt sales, updating the club’s identity, appealing to a new demographic or whatever the rationale continues to be. And here’s the rub - the first year orange was introduced (03/04), Werder won the double. Whereas the amount of orange has decreased since then, it still hangs on in superstitious spirit.

The orange lettering and highlights on the event kit is the single worst element that we can remember at the Werder Offside. Next to the black, the orange seems to increase in intensity and frankly hurts our eyes. At least our entire kits aren’t that color.

The Good

The newly designed font is fantastic. Kappa’s goofy, cartoony, bubble letters from the last handful of seasons are mercifully gone, replaced by these gems. The font is classically inspired, yet has a hint of modernity to it. Granted they look eerily similar to what puma and adidas have rolled our recently, but honestly, a bit better.

The Summary

So a mixed bag it is then. The away kit is lovely in its simplicity, the home kit boring in its awkwardness, and the event kit repulsive in its outlandishness. The orange needs to stop, but I’ll no longer cringe when Torsten Frings turns around and the green “22″ on his back is visible from space.

As long as we win some matches in this stuff.