La Liga Kit Preview 2011/12

Whether the 2011/12 La Liga season begins this weekend or faces two weeks off due to a players union strike, the kits will remain the same. Check out the newest shirts to feature in Spain this coming season.

Atlético Madrid

Same old story from Los Colchoneros. Their famed red and white striped home kit looks…well…almost exactly like last season’s. The away strip has been jazzed up just a tad with faded blue horizontal stripes to accompany the red line across the chest.  Overall they are somewhat of a letdown, which is exactly what Atlético becomes each season!

Home: 6/10
Away: 5/10

Athletic Bilbao

The champions of Basque heritage (or at least that’s what they want you to believe), have introduced a radically different away kit for this upcoming season. With the color combination and design, it looks like a cheap gas station logo similar to Chevron. Whether or not that was the aim is debatable since their sponsor, Petronor, is a Dubai based petroleum company.  Their famous red and white striped home kits have added a black trim to the sleeves and a unique design for the collar.

Home: 7/10
Away: 5/10

Barcelona

For the reigning league and European champs, 2011/12 is the dawn of a new era- shirt sponsorship. Their agreement with the Qatar Foundation is valued at €150 million, which will see Barcelona collect €30 million a season for five years. And in case they risked coming off as greedy, the club received approval to keep Unicef on the shirts as well. What better place than their ass? As for the shirts themselves, the home kit looks like a bar graph and is dizzying to stare at. On the road, Barcelona has ditched the neon for black. I’m a proponent of black kits although these are too plain – a consequence of Nike shirt designs.

Home: 6/10
Away: 6/10

Espanyol

Barcelona’s crosstown rivals opted for more girth in their blue and white vertical stripes for home matches. The away kits combine teal and dark blue with yellow trim on the sleeves. What they are trying to achieve with the design is beyond me. Color combination is an A+ though.

Home: 5/10
Away: 5/10

Getafe

The king has returned! No design or shirt maker can overcome the ludicrous fast food sponsor for Getafe. I sympathize for fans around Spain who will be forced to welcome the Madrid club with their heinous yellow away shirts. The light pink may be even worse.

Home: 3/10
Away: 2/10
Alternate: 2/10

Sporting Gijón

Once again, Kappa produces a shirt worthy of praise. Normally, kits with vertical stripes are unimpeded by text, save the sponsor in the middle. In this case however, ‘Gijón’ is emblazoned across the chest in a catchy lower-case font in addition to the sponsor. For road trips, a strange combination of gold and red, although the Omini on the shoulder always adds a touch of class. Why even bother with an alternate kit? Isn’t two more than enough for a club not competing in Europe?

Home: 7/10
Away: 6/10
Alternate: 4/10

Levante

Why the glum faces? Is it because management hasn’t paid your salaries in almost a year? Or because your jerseys look like Florida billboards for retirement communities? Neither of those sound too appealing. I just hope they got a free meal from the club for modeling.

Home: 4/10
Away: 4/10
Alternate: 4/10

Málaga

Julio “the Beast” Baptista can wear whatever he wants and it will be attractive. And even if it isn’t, are YOU going to confront him about it? Málaga’s gazillionnaire owners could only mess with the away kits, and why not a white V for victory across the chest? After all, they intend on disrupting the Barcelona/Real Madrid duopoly atop La Liga and are well on their way of constructing a squad to do so. Whether you like the kits or not, Málaga will be the team to watch in Spain this season.

Home: 6/10
Away: 5/10

Mallorca

Michael Laudrup’s islanders have spiced up their kits with a creative collar…

Home (red): 4/10
Away: 5/10

Osasuna

Osasuna recovered from a dismal start last campaign to finish in ninth. Apparently, they intend to ride that luck into this season by keeping their shirts sponsorless and incredibly dull.

Home: 3/10
Away: 3/10

Racing Santander

The Cantabrian club have introduced three shirts for the upcoming campaign. At home they have the choice of two white-based shirts, with either a green or black crew-neck and colored side. Road matches will feature a fully green kit with a black collar that begins halfway up the neck. As an optional third, the green becomes black. Nothing impressive about any of the kits except for two factors: ‘Real Racing Club’ is stitched in cursive into the collar and their sponsor makes extremely tasty sausages.

Home: 3/10
Away: 4/10
Alternate: 4/10

Rayo Vallecano

Newly promoted Vallecano has not paid its players in eighteen months!! Without money for just about anything including R&D, the Madrid side will feature their customary home shirts with a red diagonal stripe akin to River Plate’s shirt in Argentina. There’s even a slit at the bottom of the sleeves to accommodate bulging biceps. 5/10

Real Betis

Real Betis returns to La Liga after two years removed. Their home kits are identical to Athletic Bilbao’s just with a different color combination. On the road, Betis will choose from one of two options. The first looks like a silk green golf shirt while the other combines a terrible shade of orange with vertical green & white stripes on the left side of the chest, white stripes on the collar, a white stripe down the sleeve, and white stripes on the edge of the sleeve. A bit much?

Home: 5/10
Away: 5/10
Alternate: 4/10

Real Madrid

It is surprising that in nine years of ownership since 2000, Florentino Perez has not demanded gold stripes on the Royal Whites’ home kit after spending hundreds of millions of Euros on players. Better late than never! The home kit tidied up the collar with a single gold stripe, accompanied by the Adidas triple threat on the sleeve. And in case you were nervous of a clash of colors, Ronaldo’s bronze skin looks exceptional in the home kit. On the road, Madrid will wear navy blue. The end.

Home: 10/10
Away: 5/10

Real Sociedad

More stripes! Although in an effort to add some flair, the stripes were offset to create what looks like really really thick lightning bolts. The away kits are extremely unique and you won’t find many like them.  Most of the creative touch adorns the sleeves with a layered combination of blue, white, and yellow. If that design stretched across the front and back of the shirts we’d be in business. Unfortunately, this is more than a sleeve rating exercise.

Home: 5/10
Away: 5/10

Sevilla

Watching Sevilla over the past few seasons, you would think they have a new kit for each stadium or competition they compete in. New sponsor Li-Ning of China has added much more subtlety than the previous Joma kits which were dizzying at times. That being said, too much subtlety has resulted in an unimaginative and boring shirt – a v-neck with a different colored trim.

Home (white): 5/10
Away (red): 5/10
Alternate (black): 5/10

Valencia

For many years, Valencia sported one of the more attractive kits in La Liga (thanks Kappa!). A new shirt deal with Joma, famous for creating fifteen different kits for Sevilla each season, has changed all that. Valencia will wear the white kit for home matches which flaunts a unique black trim around the collar that continues down the back. Like Barcelona their away kits are boring and black, although the orange alternate strip features a black collar that adds a touch of class. I still miss Kappa.

Home: 6/10
Away: 6/10
Alternate: 6/10

Villarreal

Valencia’s other team has also ditched their long-time sponsor, Puma, for a Chinese manufacturer known as Xtep. However in this case, it doesn’t matter who the sponsor is as the Yellow Submarine will always wear a plain yellow shirt at home. The away shirt looks like an Indian Kurta. Nice touch.

Home: 6/10
Away: 6/10

Real Zaragoza

Where is the consistency in color schemes? Perhaps it’s a reflection of their mid-table anonymity or relegation over the past few seasons.  The home white kit has a funky collar and not much else to speak of. On the road, the blue/white is exchanged for a bumble bee costume. And last but certainly not least, Zaragoza has introduced for the first time in a while an alternate third kit…and from the looks of it they were better off without one.

Home: 4/10
Away: 4/10
Alternate: 2/10