European 2022-23 kit ranking: Which Champions League giant has the best jerseys?
With all of the 2022-23 Premier League kits already comprehensively ranked, it’s only fair to give the same level of sartorial scrutiny to the jerseys that will be worn by the biggest clubs in Europe’s other top leagues this season.
Here we cast a judgmental eye over each home, away and (where applicable) third shirt that have been unveiled by the top sides in LaLiga, the Bundesliga, Serie A, Ligue 1 and the Eredivisie who will be competing in the Champions League.
We’ve complied each kit which has been released so far this summer and ranked each club’s effort by their collective output to find out who is this season’s most stylish club on the continent.
– ESPN+ guide: LaLiga, Bundesliga, MLS, FA Cup, more (U.S.)
– Picks, predictions for Europe’s top leagues this season
– Don’t have ESPN? Get instant access
Home: For kits supposedly created by one of Italy’s most historic and prestigious fashion houses, the offerings for Napoli’s 2022-23 season are exceedingly dull, with predictable color palettes and uninspired designs hardly doing the Emporio Armani name justice.
Away: The away kit is on the same template as the home jersey, just with a white body and light-blue sleeves. Again, it’s serviceable but hardly likely to linger long in the memory of most Napoli supporters, who just last season were treated to special Halloween and Maradona ‘fingerprint’ designs.
Third: The Partenopei’s new third kit is a little more imaginative, with a moody dark-blue shirt flecked with a linear graphic, which the manufacturers say is inspired by the city of Naples as it appears by moonlight.
Home: RB Leipzig have definitely adopted the “more is more” approach to their 2022-23 home shirt, which bears a large, grotesque graphic in gray and red that resembles a catastrophic spillage at an industrial chemical compound. Whether or not that is the look Nike was aiming for, we do not know.
Away: Thankfully, the away kit is far more understated with a bright red shirt latticed all over with a darker red grid graphic to create a loose mishmash of crosses and stripes. It lacks charm, but the overall design is less jarring than the gruesome home jersey.
Third: RB Leipzig have been handed a standard template for their third shirt, which is predominantly black with fading red stripes running the length of the torso. Again, the club motto “You can do anything” is printed on the back of the neck, though unfortunately that doesn’t appear to extend to making their kits look good.
Home: Leverkusen’s simple red shirt has subtle jagged bands running across the body, which are actually created using soundwaves taken from recordings of the matchday atmosphere at the BayArena. It’s not a unique concept (Manchester City and Denmark had shirts featuring sound wave graphics in the past), but it’s always nice to see a club quite literally give their fans a voice when creating new kits.
Away: The black away kit has a far more striking “spliced” graphic that takes inspiration from the German club’s iconic striped shirts favoured throughout their 1990s heyday.
✨💎 𝒮𝒪 𝐹𝑅𝐸𝒮𝐻!
Check out our THIRD KIT for the season! 🤩
🛒 https://t.co/45CBKI5P6s pic.twitter.com/rDa5GhAZSs
Third: A plain white shirt with neat lines of contrasting black-and-red trim. Perfectly agreeable in an inoffensive, overly simplistic sort of way.
Home: Atletico’s new home kit has caused a stink among some fans who took against the wavy red-and-white stripes, inspired by the meandering path of the Manzanares river, which flowed past the club’s former stadium.
Away: Given the risk taken with the unorthodox design of the home shirt, it’s inevitable that Nike were reluctant to rock the boat further with a similarly outlandish away kit. Unfortunately they’ve gone too far the other way and, as such, Atleti have been plied with a generic black-and-blue design almost entirely void of character.
Home: The first fruit of Sevilla’s new kit deal with Castore, the 2022-23 home kit is a plain white shirt with red trim that is just about lifted above the mundane by a faint mosaic motif woven into the material inspired by azulejos, the famous ceramic tiles that have been produced in the Andalusian city for hundreds of years.
Away: There is no such local flavour present on the away kit — a blood-red shirt with tonal hoops of varying widths and raglan sleeves.
Third: The geometric pattern returns on the sleeves and shorts of the all-black third kit, which is set off by contrasting flashes of bright pink trim. The tessellating motif is inspired by the architecture of the Giralda, the historic bell tower that forms part of Seville Cathedral and is mentioned in the club’s modern terrace anthem, the Himno Centenario.
Home: Dortmund’s most straightforward home kit for quite some time, the 2022-23 jersey is a simpler take on the club’s famous black-and-yellow stripes. No ornamentation or flamboyance, just stripes.
Away: As has been the case since the turn of the millennium, Dortmund have contrasted their bright yellow home shirt with a black away shirt that features a glitchy grey checkerboard graphic creating a “half-and-half” effect. Sadly, not a patch on last season’s herringbone design.
Third/Cup: As they do every year, Dortmund have also released a “cup kit” that is essentially an alternative version of their home strip specifically designated for use in cup competition. This year’s kit is a (very tenuous) visual nod to the jersey worn by the club in the 1989 DFB-Pokal final, which they won 4-1 against Werder Bremen.
Home: No prizes for guessing that Inter have gone with blue-and-black stripes for 2022-23, though the arched neckline that several Nike kits have this season does bring to mind those infamously tight, rugby-style shirts favoured by several Italian clubs in the early 2000s. Not a classic by any means, but it’s further proof that it is almost impossible to make those beautiful Nerazzuri stripes look bad.
Home: It’s unwise to mess with a classic, and Puma have allowed Milan’s carefully cultivated aesthetic to do all the heavy lifting with a neat, unfussy take on the Rossoneri stripes. The addition of the Italian tricolore to the sleeve cuffs just sets everything else off nicely.
Away: Milan have again gone with a white away kit that again conjures images of former glories. As a further nod to their grand past, the body of the shirt also features seven truncated red stripes — one for every European Cup the club have lifted.
Home: After a darker shade of red was used as the base for last season’s home kit, Bayern have reverted to a brighter, more traditional hue. As they are prone to do on occasion, the Bavarians have also added white stripes into the mix — much like they last did in 2017-18. It’s not an instant classic, but no doubt it will have grown on fans by the time Julian Nagelsmann’s side are lifting their 11th Bundesliga title in a row next spring.
Away: Bayern have chosen to commemorate their immense recent success in time-honoured fashion — by adding golden trim to their new kit. The result is a shirt that looks as crisp, clean and white as freshly driven snow.
Home: Real Madrid’s ice-white new home kit is a lavish birthday present to themselves on what will be their 120th anniversary. The uniform sees a return for purple trim for the first time since 2007-08 while the classic formal button-up collar has been a staple of Real shirts since their earliest years. The very fabric of the jersey also has a woven pattern made up of Los Blancos‘ club crest, which is intended to symbolise the notion of “Grandeza” — the innate spirit of greatness that has inspired Real players since 1902.
Away: Lavender with a retro tinge, the purple theme continues on the Real Madrid away shirt and is further embellished by a smart diagonal tile graphic that is inspired by the angular designs used on several alternate kits throughout the 1990s.
Home: Juventus have experimented with their visual identity in recent years, streamlining their club crest and even tinkering with their famous stripes (even abandoning them altogether in 2019-20, much to the chagrin of fans). The 2022-23 home kit sees the Bianconeri once again try something a little out there in a bid to modernise their look, this time using vertical bars of small interlocking triangles to create the stripe effect. Whisper it, but even we — as staunch football kit traditionalists — think it looks great, and the “electrified” Jeep logo is just *chef’s kiss*.
Away: Juve’s superbly menacing black away kit is inspired by the crackle of the atmosphere during night matches at their stadium, which has now been open for more than a decade. Molto bene.
Home: PSG’s famous “Hechter stripe” is traditionally red with a white outline, but the colours have been flipped on a jersey which could boast the biggest, widest stripe ever. An abstract maze-like pattern is woven into the blue shirt, which is vibrant with Parisian luxe. It’s also nice of PSG to add Lionel Messi‘s unofficial nickname to the sleeve of their new shirt, with the word “GOAT” appearing as a sponsor’s marque*.
(*We’re assured that the GOAT app is actually the Ligue 1 club’s new next-generation lifestyle platform partner, whatever that may mean.)
Away: Bearing the Jumpman logo of the Jordan brand, this silver kit is actually a tribute to PSG’s home, with the Parc des Princes set to turn 50 this year. Intentionally the colour of half-century-old concrete, the outfit is a loving salute to the 48,000-capacity arena that stands in the west of the French capital and has, to date, played host to more than 1,140 PSG matches.
Home: Barcelona have themed all of this season’s kits around the 1992 Olympic Games, which were held in the city and had a transformative effect on its architecture and infrastructure. The handsome home jersey is supposed to symbolise the “new light” and sense of pride that flooded into Catalonia as a result of the mass Olympic regeneration project, and features the addition of a brand new shade of blue to the emblematic Blaugrana stripes.
Away: While the home kit denotes the effect that the 1992 Olympics had on Barcelona as a city, the dazzling away kit is a much more direct homage to the ultimate prize on offer to all athletes competing at the Games. As such, the shirt is a beautiful burnished gold, while it also features the five colours of the famous Olympic rings on the sleeve cuff trim.
Home: You cannot go wrong with the Ajax home kit. Truly timeless and instantly recognisable, the white and red “apron” design worn by the Dutch club since time immemorial (well, since 1911) is testament to the age-old maxim “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Somehow more sumptuous than ever, this season’s vintage also features additional golden touches on the trim and club crest, as well as the names and numbers on the back.
Away: Ajax have produced a string of truly gorgeous alternate kits in recent years featuring blue and orange jerseys and even a tribute to Bob Marley. But the Amsterdam giants have managed to up their game once again with what might just be their most aesthetically appealing away shirt ever — a sleek dark blue number with dashing red and gold trim. The neck detailing in particular is worth of note, with the triangular shapes designed to create the image of the Andreas cross (the central cross in the city’s official coat of arms) in the negative space. As our Dutch friends might say: “Het is een absolute bloedige schoonheid.“