Merry Christmas!
Welcome to this website’s off-season sports sartorial content. We are counting down the world’s top 50 most iconic sports uniforms. Only current uniforms apply, we are not including one-off or alternate uniforms. Let’s stick to the basics.
#48
Netherlands Soccer
Lately, the Oranje Army has been associated strongly with the dominance of Dutch F1 driver Max Verstappen whose fans can be seen at races all over the world dressed in orange and lighting orange flares. While this is a more recent phenomena on the track, the origins come from Netherlands’ true love of their national soccer team.
Throughout our countdown there will be uniforms that are uniquely and unquestionably iconic but at least suffer a little bit from a current design. I think the Netherlands current soccer kit applies here.
They updated their soccer crest back in 1986 and then again in 1997. Back in 2014, they did yet another refresh going back to their roots with a throwback lion crest that’s looked really sharp since it debuted.
For me, I don’t like the black trim which the soccer teams for both the men and women have been using often in recent years. Whenever they use white or blue for trim, especially with the crest, it just seems more…Dutch to me. Lately, they look more like Team Halloween.
As such, the current uniforms are just okay overall. There’s a feint pattern throughout the orange from an overall very basic kit (although the black on the back of the collar is also bad). Netherlands can do better but the all-orange is without a doubt an iconic sports uniform, as instantly recognizable in the futbol world as anyone else.
That’s it? One at a time? Just to tease this out? OK, if that’s a thing, then I’ll throw in, and concur about the black trim.
But living in Europe I see them quite a lot, especially every two years (alternate World’s Cup and European UEFA championship). And I could swear they have mostly been playing with a slightly more… orangey…. orange than your photo. Can this be true?
The current kit (released in 2020) has those lighter streaks and the orange overall does seem much lighter. The women seem to wear a really pale shade of orange currently, too.
The previous 4 or 5 Netherlands kits were all a much deeper orange, for sure.