2026 World Cup Kit Rankings Part Four: 12-1 including England, Germany & France | OneFootball

And so we reach the end of our journey, our odyssey, through the 48 home kits to be worn at this summer’s World Cup.

We’ve done the bad, the quite good and the very good. We arrive now at last at the very, very best.

We’re as surprised as you are, frankly, to see how many adidas efforts made it to this end of the list despite the unpleasantness with the stripes. But it’s a Nike kit that takes top spot, with a stunning Puma effort claiming the silver medal in a tournament where all the Big Three have done some lovely work and yet been given a run for their money by the smaller brands.

12. Paraguay

Shades here of the Macron-produced Crystal Palace shirts of both 22/23 and 24/25 and a loose, free-wheeling approach to a striped shirt that holds no truck with such niceties as colouring within the lines. Looking at this shirt takes us back to Infant School and the fearsome Mrs Palmer shouting “NO SCRIBBLING!” at us if we weren’t paying due care and attention to our very important colouring in.

We were on to something then, Macron were on to something with Palace, and the much-maligned (especially by us) Puma are on to something here. Do kind of think we might end up changing our mind and hating this, but the Paraguayans have caught us on a good day where we rather like it.

Tomorrow we shall no doubt be shouting “NO SCRIBBLING!”

11. Cape Verde

Just look at it. Magnificent stuff from Capelli. It’s like a navy blue version of the legendary Arsenal bruised banana. But there’s more. That striking triangular design actually represents the flight paths between Cape Verde’s various islands.

The smaller nations and smaller brands are punching massively at this World Cup and you love to see it.

10. Japan

We’re really not sure which adidas kits upset us most. The ones that aren’t that good anyway, so the butchered stripes are just an additional annoyance, or the ones that would be great if they just had normal, proper adidas stripes on them.

This one would be great if it just had the normal, proper adidas stripes on it.

We’ve rarely seen a better deployed central crest than this, with the curved lines of the shirt’s graphics drawing everything to the JFA badge, meaning it takes clear precedent visually and stylistically over the adidas Equipment logo above it. This instantly helps it dodge one of the primary issues of the centred badges look.

Lovely collar on this one as well. Lovely, lovely kit. Apart from the obvious and already frequently mentioned disgrace that has befallen every adidas home kit at this tournament.

9. Mexico

Yes, it’s adidas so yes, it’s saddled with the abysmal fat stripes and once again the long-sleeved version is a complete write-off.

But it’s definitely one of the less horrific adidas home kits on display. We are often wary of massive multinational companies inserting ‘local’ motifs and imagery into national-team kits. Can be a dodgy area.

What we can say here is that the circular Aztec-inspired print on this looks absolutely banging and performs the key role of distracting from those stripes. No, we won’t let it go.

There’s a clear influence from the classic 1998 ABA-manufactured shirt here and a nice two-tone collar. The ‘SOMOS MEXICO’ (WE ARE MEXICO) on the back in the flag colours ties the jersey unmistakably to the tournament, as is only right and proper for the hosts.

It’s a very decent kit.

8. Saudi Arabia

Now that is how you distract from stupid fat stripes. Fabulous thing, this. Not sure what the pattern is supposed to represent: we don’t want to look it up and find out because we won’t like the truth anywhere near as much as we like what we think it looks like, which is Space Invaders.

More football kits that look like old arcade games, please.

Also, you’d be absolutely raging at this if you’re Newcastle. Imagine having to suffer all the horrible Suadi-inspired green kits they’ve had in the last few years only for actual Saudi Arabia to get this absolute beaut.

7. England

It’s not complicated or showy or revolutionary in any way. It’s just really, really, really good. A really, really good England shirt that has all the correct things in the correct proportions for a good England shirt. It sits absolutely perfectly in what is for us the ideal England shirt sweet spot.

The perfect England shirt should have just enough navy blue on it to look like it could be a Spurs shirt, but just enough red on it so that it doesn’t, but not so much red that it looks like it might be a Bolton shirt.

And here we land right in the middle of that Venn diagram. Lovely collar and cuffs on here today with a subtle hint at the flag without being ostentatious about it.

One interesting thing here is that throughout these rankings we’ve been focused pretty much entirely on the shirts. Basically if a shirt is good, there’s not much the shorts can do to ruin it and if the shirt is bad there’s no shorts on earth that will save it.

This is the only kit that we’ve marked down slightly because of the shorts. The problem? They’re white. They should not be white. They should obviously – obviously – be navy.

England’s shorts should always be navy, or light blue if you’re doing some wild tribute to 1986 or something. But never white.

And if for some ungodly reason they absolutely must be white then you must do a very plain white kit for an overall effect. We still won’t like it, but we’ll understand. When you’ve got a shirt that we’ve already credited with having exactly 100 per cent of the correct amount of navy on it, why would you then go with white shorts? Make it make sense.

6. Germany

We’re still coming to terms with the fact this is the last tournament where adidas will be making Germany’s kits. It just feels impossible and wrong to imagine anyone else doing it.

Obviously they are now doomed to have their final tournament kit from this iconic partnership be one saddled with fat-stripe disease, but we’ll try as hard as we can to ignore that ghastliness and focus on a wonderful bit of design.

While someone at adidas said “What if we completely ruin the easiest bit to get right on all our home shirts for the next 18 months?” and was shaken by the hand instead of punched in the face, someone else (we simply refuse to believe it could be the same person) has also said “What if the 1990 and 2014 World Cup-winning shirts had a baby?”

This person deserves all the plaudits that will come their way because the resulting design is an absolute winner.

We know we said we’d try not to be pricks about it, but put the proper, correct stripes on this and it really might be top of the whole lot.

Do you know what didn’t have stupid fat stripes on them? The 1990 and 2014 World Cup-winning kits. Makes you think.

5. Canada

Big prints are in at this World Cup, and we are here for it. The secondary hosts, if we can call them that, have both come out of that trend well, with Canada’s two-tone red maple-leaf effort one of the classiest and cleanest efforts from Nike or indeed anyone else this summer.

We love that Nike geometric collar that’s a feature of their template this summer, and especially that they’ve realised it’s enough of a statement on its own. It requires no further augmentation and has been left pleasingly and simply red here.

The silvery-white away version of this same kit is just as good, the design quality meaning the repetition is entirely welcome and doesn’t scream laziness as can so often be the case.

4. Norway

Are you paying attention, USA? That’s how you put your whole damn flag on the kit without looking like absolute arseholes.

There’s even a graphic print inside the massive blue cross. It should absolutely be too much and not work. And yet, it does. Magnificently.

The inspiration for the design apparently comes from the 1997 Umbro shirt that also featured a prominent cross shifted over to the right-hand side.

But let us tell you now, that shirt was garbage. It looked like a Man United shirt that had suffered a catastrophic printing error. It was a mess, and not a hot one.

This is a thing of beauty all its own.

3. South Korea

An absolute beauty, this, a fact rendered even more remarkable when you consider that the away kit is even better. We could and indeed have lost a good 45 minutes of our lives staring at a picture of Son Heung-min wearing this kit and smiling at us. We have no regrets.

An all-over pattern is always a bold choice for a kit, but Nike are very good at it. They almost always get the balance right; if you’ve having a dramatic graphic effect on the shirt itself, you need to keep the other details minimalist, simple and not in any way distracting. Given the geometric stylings of the collar on this template, it could easily have gone wrong – sticking with all red here is a masterstroke. Keeping the remaining details – cuffs, piping, side panels in unobtrusive black and white also just excellent decision-making.

Chuck in that gorgeous away kit, and South Korea are a definite contender for this year’s best dressed.

2. Ghana

There’s always a kit, isn’t there? One that grabs everyone by the bollards and becomes a talking point all of its own. At the moment, Curacao’s away kit is getting that kind of attention.

But the problem for the Curacao away kit – stunning as it is – is that unless Curacao get through the group stage there is no chance we actually get to see it in action. That’s a setback, and it could scupper it once the game is really afoot.

That’s where Ghana come in. The wild pattern on here emanating out from the trademark black star is based on traditional cloth from the country. That’s all well and good, sure, but also it looks like a psychedelic spider’s web.

And although we’ve never realised it before, it turns out that we really, really like football shirts that look like they have a psychedelic spider’s web on them.

1. France

If you’ve read the previous three parts to this – and if you haven’t then you’re very naughty but we’ll forgive you – you’ll know that we don’t care for buttons on football shirts.

So the presence of a button on our number one home shirt from this World Cup should tell you how good the rest of this is. Just look at it, for crying out loud. It’s absolutely beautiful.

And they’ll probably win the whole thing wearing it too, the swines.