45. Nike Trophy IV (2020-22)
Chris Oakley | 31 August 2024
I’m not going to lie. I’m expecting a universal shrug of the shoulders when many of you see that Nike’s Trophy IV template features in the latest instalment of this series. Be that as it may, I admire football shirts that are designed simply and with a discrete sense of style, and this is a fine example of that.
From left: AZ Alkmaar (2020-21 away), FC Eindhoven (2020-21 away), Erzgebirge Aue (2020-21 third), French Guiana (2022 home).
Oh I know some of you will be crying ‘Teamwear!’ from the tops of your voices, but what’s wrong with having a strong design made freely available to as many people as possible? I could use this as a platform to discuss the whys and wherefores of teamwear designs specifically, but I won’t. I will, however, use this as a platform to indicate what’s so good about Trophy IV.
From left: French Guiana (2022 away), KRC Genk (2020-21 away and third), Guadeloupe (2022 home).
First of all, let’s discuss collars - winged collars, specifically. Speaking personally, I don’t like them as much as I used to, and I used to like them a LOT. Unfortunately Everton’s home shirt from the 2023-24 season rather pushed me over the edge. Every time I saw that Hummel-designed collar, I felt repulsed in a way that I never expected. Whether it was the decoration or something else, it always looked wrong to me.
Having seen so many winged collars since the 1970s, had I now fallen out of love with them? After much consideration, I realised I still liked winged collars - at least if they were relatively small. In my opinion, that’s how they should look in the modern era, and the Trophy IV template gets a pass in that regard.
From left: Livingston (2020-21 home), Montpellier (2020-21 home, away and third).
Establishing a traditional and dignified foundation to the design, Nike then made a point of staying true to those values for every other element it added. Each shirt typically had sleeves in a different colour or tone to that which was used on the central body section. This proved to be a clever strategy as any team opting to wear the template as an away or third shirt could experiment with interesting colour combinations, while a home shirt could retain the sense of sobriety fans would expect in the primary kit.
Some colour schemes were clearly offered as part of Nike’s teamwear distribution plan and crop up regularly. Genk, Kaiserslautern and AZ Alkmaar chose Hyper Turq and Volt (turquoise and luminous yellow-green) for their third shirts. (I couldn’t find evidence of the latter two wearing theirs, but this was the era of Covid when some photographers would have been unavailable.) AZ and Preston North End, meanwhile, chose Midnight Navy and Photo Blue (summer blue) for their away shirts. Other popular colour combos included Tour Yellow / University Gold (favoured by Livingston, French Guiana and Guadeloupe) and Safety Orange / Team Orange (worn by Erzgebirge Aue and Montpellier).
From left: Preston North End (2020-21 home and away), Sochaux (2020-21 home and away).
There was also a shadow pattern on each shirt which added a dash of modernity that, had it been absent, would have perhaps left the design looking a little tired. The pattern was made up of a series of triangles rotated 180 degrees alternately, each one line-shaded in a variety of ways. The effect provided a slight shimmer to the shirt when seen up close, and was quite delightful in the way it used a single geometric shape flipped, turned and striped in its own right.
Aside from the sleeves, collar and shadow pattern (shimmer pattern?), a short stripe appeared at the bottom of both sides of the shirt in many versions, but that was essentially the extent of all the main features. Oh sure, KRC Genk decided to put a photographic silhouette of a mine shaft on its away shirt, but this was merely a desperate attempt to add an element of glamour to a design that didn’t strictly need it.
From left: Sunderland (2020-21 away), FC Utrecht (2020-21 away), Young Boys (2020-21 home and away).
So yes, you may scoff, you may disagree, you may even question my sanity at including Nike’s Trophy IV in my top 100, but I think it’s a decent template. You might be outraged by its lack of bells and whistles, but some football shirts actually work better without them. Just occasionally, all you need is something your team can wear that demands respect and won’t make them a laughing stock. Nike know exactly how to do that, and this is the proof.
Many thanks go to FSWorld and Adam's Shirt Quest for their help in researching this template.
To see the full set of Nike Trophy IV kits, visit the Nike Trophy IV template gallery page.
* Update:
I'm fairly certain I discussed Portsmouth's new kits for the 2020-21 season on an old episode of The Kitbliss Podcast, yet despite this, I recently forgot that two of them were based on Nike's Trophy IV template.
Luckily, Scott Griffin and Denis Hurley were on hand to send me a helpful reminder, and for that, I'm very grateful. Thanks to them, I've now added Portsmouth's home and third kits for that season to the template gallery page.
If you've seen any Trophy IV kits I've missed, please do let me know. You can drop me a line via the contact form here. Thanks a lot...
