Or, how Nike and Adidas have ruined Euro 2016.

Unbelievably I’ve had requests for a round up of the shirts of Euro 2016. Well I say requests … one person has asked me. Thanks Tom (@leads), it’s nice know at least someone cares.

Normally I’ve been champing at the bit to tuck in to a feast of new designs but, to be perfectly honest, I hadn’t been impressed by much that I’d see. Nike and Adidas have ruined it. Both are guilty of producing designs that look phoned in. Not even by their good designers. The other manufactures haven’t risen to the occasion either, stand outs are few and far between.

There are a lot of teams now, 24 to be precise, meaning a minimum of 48 shirts … maybe they’re struggling for staff?

I’m struggling for a way to structure this, so I’m going to be boring and do it group by group. So first up, somewhat unsurprisingly, is group A.

Group A – Albania, France, Romania, Switzerland.

Albania

Albania have got a national football team? Who knew?! This is their first major competition, and everything. I even know one of their players. Hell, I’ve even seen him play and score a goal, live, in front of my face. That puts Erik Cana in a very select group of players at this tournament.

So what are the stereotypical minnows going to be wearing? Rather stereotypically they will be rigged out in stereotypically minnowish Macron.

I’m not going to waste to many words on this, but I can see I’m going to struggle to not use ‘meh’ in this article already.

These are fine. If you cover up the bottom half of the shirt they are perfectly acceptable, off-the-peg, Sunday league catalogue shirts. (Though I have a lot of time for their scary eagle badge, which is seemingly taken from the Albanian Quidditch World Cup side.)

The antler topped line things that adorn the bottom half are … interesting. I think I’d have preferred if they hadn’t seemingly got embarrassed about the idea, and started to fade them out towards the bottom. Stay strong Macron. Stay strong.

France

As ever the French seem to have found a way to force Nike to produce great shirts for them. Even when Nike (as will become all too apparent) seem determined to half arse the whole tournament.

Two teams in and it’s basically all downhill from here …

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