Away Kit Usage at Euros and World Cups
Chris Oakley | 14 August 2024
As Euro 2024 slowly drew to a close recently, Derek Robertson sent a letter to The Knowledge, a weekly feature in the football section of The Guardian’s website. It said:
“The quarter-final against Portugal was France’s fifth game of the tournament. And for four of them – Austria in the opener, the second group game against the Netherlands, the last 16 against Belgium, and the Portugal match – they’ve had to wear their away kit (so 80% of the games). Is this a record? Have any other international teams been unable to wear their home colours more?”
Derek’s question came before France wore their away kit for a fifth time in their semi-final against Spain. Five times in six games meant Les Bleus finished with a percentage score of 83.3% - a considerable preference for the white kit over the blue.
Being someone that loves statistical research on football kits, I thought I’d swing into action to try and provide an answer for Derek. A lengthy trawl through the deepest recesses of the internet predictably generated lots of data. Would I be able to make sense of it all?
The range of data
From the outset, I knew this wouldn’t just be a project looking at the Euros. I’d have to broaden my research to include the FIFA World Cup Finals too, because it would only leave the door open for a follow-up question to The Guardian saying “What about the World Cup?” It would mean more time spent wading through myriad web pages, but if a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well...
Assessing the kits
I had no difficulty collating the data, but there was already a doubt in the back of my mind. Would I be able to identify which were the home kits and which were the change kits? I was sure my judgement would be right for at least 95% of the time, but what about the other 5%? I’d have to deal with the exceptions as and when I found them. We know that teams have to nominate a home and change strip for a major tournament, but finding those official notifications to UEFA or FIFA is not at all easy...
Reducing the scope
As intended, my research covered all 22 FIFA World Cups thus far and all 17 UEFA European Championships. Having recorded (to the best of my knowledge) which kits were worn by each competing team, my first job was to focus on the important stuff.
Put simply, the only credible data would belong to teams that played more than three games in a tournament. After all, if you heard about a country playing in their away kit for all of their First Round games only to get knocked out before the Round of 16, that 100% record wouldn’t be much of a brag. I therefore chose to consider only teams that had played four or more games, and even then, only those with a 50% overall percentage or higher.
The results
So here’s what I discovered. Fundamentally, Derek Robertson was right to think that France’s 83.3% average for Euro 2024 was very high, because it is... but it’s not the highest in percentage terms. That honour goes to Croatia who wore their away kit during all four games of their Euro 2008 campaign, thereby scoring an unbeatable 100%.
But the key point there is ‘four games’ - France wore their away kit in five games during Euro 2024, so it depends which metric you go for. If it’s the percentage of all games, Croatia hold the record, if it’s the number of games in which the away kit was worn, the honour goes to France.
Just behind them were two more teams. During Euro 2004, Czech Republic wore their away kit four times out of a possible five, thereby earning an 80% average, and the Soviet Union did the same throughout their strong run in Euro 88. Beyond that, it’s also worth mentioning Croatia (again) and the Republic of Ireland, both of whom wore their away kit in three out of four games during Euro 2016.
But that’s just the European Championships. For the World Cup, only two teams have ever worn their away kit in five separate matches during one tournament, and wouldn’t you know it... it’s France and Croatia again. France did it in 2006 and Croatia did it in 2018, but in both cases, their respective away kits were worn in five out of seven games, which is 71.4% overall.
For the highest percentage, however, Costa Rica take the crown. During World Cup 2014, they wore their away kit in four of their five matches up to and including the quarter finals, so their 80% score is higher than that of France or Croatia.
Four teams have worn their away kit 75% of the time during a World Cup campaign (or three times out of four) - Uruguay (1986 and 1990), the Soviet Union (1986) and the Republic of Ireland (1994).
Summary
So what has the data told us? If nothing else, we should all be wary of France and Croatia in a major tournament, for they are undoubtedly the masters at favouring their away kit over their home kit. Other names to add to the list are Uruguay and the Republic of Ireland, for they, too, prefer a change of uniform before going into battle.