When Germany announced that Nike would replace adidas as its kit supplier from 2027, it sounded like the end of a partnership that had become almost impossible to picture ending. Germany in white, with three stripes on the shoulders, has been a familiar sight for more than seven decades. The decision was a commercial one, and the German Football Association said Nike had made by far the strongest financial offer. Adidas lost the contract. What has become interesting since is how little they have behaved like a brand quietly seeing out its notice.
Adidas had Germany at the 2026 World Cup and used the occasion to look backwards as well as forwards. The home shirt drew on familiar elements of the country’s kit history, while the away shirt carried a small label marking the partnership that began in 1954. Then came the Bringback collection, which put shirts from 1990, 1994, 2006, 2007 and 2014 back in front of supporters. Germany are even set to wear a reissued version of the green 1990 away kit against the Netherlands this week. These are separate releases and decisions, but together they give the final year the feel of a long goodbye.
Now adidas have invited the people who wore the shirts to make their case for them. In The Great Debate, former Germany players including Jürgen Klinsmann, Philipp Lahm and Per Mertesacker sit with members of the current generation and argue over the best national-team kit. Florian Wirtz champions the pink 2024 away shirt; others reach for the ones tied to their own years in the team. The film ends by teasing one last adidas Germany shirt, due to be unveiled on 3 November.
It is a clever way to say goodbye because the argument cannot really be won. Ask somebody to choose the best Germany shirt and you are also asking them which tournament they remember most vividly, which players they loved, and how old they were when they watched. Someone will choose 1990 for the pattern across the chest; someone else will choose a shirt they owned as a child, even if collectors would never put it near the top of a list. Adidas do not need everybody to agree on a winner because every answer brings another memory back into the room.
That is the advantage of having made shirts for so long. A manufacturer’s mark can become part of a team’s visual identity through repetition, but it takes matches and people to give it meaning. Germany’s adidas archive contains shirts associated with triumph and disappointment, with bold designs and restrained ones, with men’s and women’s teams across different generations. The company can reissue a shirt or make a film about it, but it cannot manufacture the memories attached to the original. Those were made by the people who wore it and the people who watched. The farewell works because adidas understand the difference.
The shirt Nike inherits
None of this makes the decision to change suppliers foolish, nor does it mean Nike are destined to make a poor Germany kit. The DFB has responsibilities beyond selling shirts, and it says Nike’s proposal offered both better financial terms and support for areas including grassroots and women’s football. Nike may bring ideas to Germany that adidas, after so many years, would never have tried. There will be people ready to buy the first shirt simply because it looks different.
But Nike’s first Germany kit will arrive with an unusual burden. Most new suppliers are compared with the last shirt or two. Nike will be compared with an archive adidas have spent their final year placing back into public view. They will inherit a team whose supporters have just been asked, repeatedly and warmly, to remember what Germany looked like in three stripes. That does not make Nike’s job impossible but it makes their first shirt more than a design launch.
There is still one adidas shirt to come, and it may or may not deserve a place beside the favourites in that film. Calling something the final edition gives it a story before anyone has seen it; whether it earns a life of its own will depend on the design and what happens while Germany wear it. For now, though, the campaign has achieved something more lasting than anticipation for another release. It has made the handover feel personal.
Nike won the right to make Germany’s next shirt. Adidas are making sure we remember who made the others. If this is what defeat looks like, it's a glorious way to go.
You can shop classic Germany shirts on the Showboat marketplace in app or on our website here.
