With the 2026-27 season now underway across Europe‘s big leagues, we’ve had the chance to see teams limbering up in their new array of warmup apparel.
Predominantly worn by players while milling around on the pitch before kick-off, the designated “prematch” shirt has become a staple of the range in recent years. Many clubs put increasing amounts of effort and care into crafting said jerseys and even creating multiple variations or colorways that compliment their latest home and away kits.
Now that all of the big clubs have been in action for a few weeks, we’ve had the chance to peruse their respective prematch offerings and run a fashion-conscious eye over them — whether they be good, bad, or indeed, irredeemably ugly.
THE GOOD
Barcelona
Barcelona have a lovely set of home and away variants for their prematch garb this season. The former is a rather appealing reworking of their famous Blaugrana club colours into a chic checkerboard design. Much like their Kobe Bryant collab “Mamba mentality” away kit, the alternate prematch jersey is a purple nebula design that comes with matching metallic logos and matte gold trim. Very Cyberpunk, much like Gavi‘s neon pink hair.
Manchester United
The red rose of Lancashire takes centre stage on Manchester United’s warmup top this season, with multiple silhouetted graphics of the symbolic flower being picked out in red against a black backdrop. Possibly just one rose blooming around the club crest might have produced a more streamlined effect, but it’s a smart effort nevertheless.
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Liverpool
Liverpool have used the very same “LFC” pattern found on their new 2026-27 away kit to add texture to the all-red home version of their new pre-match shirts. The motif is inspired by printed decoration found on vintage Anfield tickets stubs from the 1970s and 80s and really helps to elevate the design.
Real Madrid
Real Madrid have implemented the same rosy pink and bottle green colour combo across all of their home, away and third kits this campaign, with the prematch shirt sharing the same palette. The simple, smart retro design comes complete with raglan sleeves, a V-neck collar, Adidas trefoil logo and the club’s initials (“RMCF”) printed across the back of the shoulders.
Paris Saint-Germain
PSG’s standard livery is melded in such a way as to create an eye-catching melange of neon purple hues thanks to the optical illusion created by the narrow pinstripes and the swirling gradients of red and blue in the background. There’s also an oversized PSG crest slapped bang in the centre for good measure — but still the design feels cool and dynamic rather than cluttered.
AS Roma
Roma have weighed in with some lovely kits this season (the white retro away shirt being a highlight) but the club’s latest prematch jersey holds its own. The base is dark grey with a fine checkerboard texture that shimmers like fish scales under light. The complementary trim is then applied in the traditional giallorossi colours of carmine red and golden yellow.
Inter Milan
With subtle hallmarks of a handful of classic Inter Milan home kits, the 2026-27 prematch jersey is wrapped in an all-over blue and navy triangular pattern that is set off nicely by the contrasting logos and crests, all of which are overlaid in bright yellow. There is a corresponding away version but it’s mostly just grey and unexciting.
AC Milan
Just as the club are gearing up to pull down their spiritual home of the past 100 years, the unmistakable architecture of the San Siro has been used to adorn Milan’s new prematch jersey. Like torn scraps of poignant mementos, the fragments of the iconic cylindrical stairwells and open roofline are instantly recognisable amid the jumble of imagery.
Wrexham
Wrexham have put an impressive amount of effort into their warmup shirt for 2026-27 by creating a foliage-covered design inspired by the ancient yew trees found in the churchyard at Overton, a nearby village. Thought to be 2,000 years old, the trees are considered to be one of the Seven Wonders of Wales, with this shirt now presumably being the eighth.
THE BAD
Bayern Munich
While there’s nothing remarkable about Bayern’s prematch shirt, the colour leaves us feeling a little unwell. Resembling a mysterious bruise that forms on your leg for no reason, it’s just one of those shades of off-purple that defies classification. It could be mauve; it could be lavender; it could be lilac. Why, it could even — heaven forbid — be puce.
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Ajax
Ajax’s new prematch shirt has a trippy, hypnotic graphic formed by a series of concentric rings emanating out from the central crest, with miscellaneous squiggles filling the gaps. The rings, which all have a tiled effect on closer inspection, are apparently inspired by the panelled roofing at the club’s old De Meer Stadion. It’s an interesting jersey, but we strongly advise that you don’t gaze too long upon it.
Manchester City
Perhaps offered as a counterpoint to last season’s utterly grim drizzle-inspired third kit, City’s 2026-27 prematch shirt is covered in pristine blue skies and fluffy white clouds. While hardly the most typical depiction of the Mancunian weather, this home variant of the shirt is at least much, much more appealing than the truly ghastly “mash-up” version that has just been launched alongside it.
Tottenham Hotspur
Suboptimal stuff from Tottenham here, who have settled for an unimaginative navy design with light blue and white diagonal wisps forming a sash over the shoulder. It’s not awful by any stretch of the imagination, but it is undeniably humdrum.
Arsenal
Arsenal are treading a very, very fine line between bad and ugly with a gaudy prematch shirt that is covered all over in spiky fronds of red, white and pale blue. The abstract design that is supposed to “capture the anticipation of match time” — presumably by depicting the intense waves of nervous queasiness that come before a big game.
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Atlético Madrid
Who could blame Julián Álvarez for looking so grumpy? Both of Atleti’s home and away prematch shirts have the same ripple graphic on the front, with the radiating pulse of energy supposed to symbolise the energy and fighting spirit it takes to gain Diego Simeone‘s favour. The home (red and white) version is pretty bad, but the away (black and luminous green) is even worse.
THE UGLY
Chelsea
Chelsea’s home prematch shirt is a grim mix of pale blue watercolour-style blotches billowing across the torso and sleeve, that in turn are framed at the edges by what appears to be an oversized and entirely incongruous abstract laurel motif. It’s just a big, murky mess.
Aston Villa
Fragments of Villa’s rampant lion emblem have been blown-up and distorted to create a psychedelic, oozing graphic with wavy fractal swirls of white, black and lurid pinks and purple. The resulting aesthetic is pitched somewhere between a Windows 2000 Media Player visualization and a particularly headache-inducing Rorschach test.
Leeds United
The nemesis of Manchester United’s red rose kit, Leeds’ uber-ornate “white rose of Yorkshire” design is quite literally plastered all over their new prematch jersey. It has been given a blue-turquoise shimmer effect just to ramp up the gaudiness levels to unbearable levels.
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Juventus
We can’t help but feel like the gigantic gold star walloped onto the front of Juve’s new prematch shirt spoils what might have otherwise been a perfectly serviceable, if understated Bianconeri design. Had the star graphic been applied with a touch more refinement, it might have worked but unfortunately the whole thing just looks entirely out of place.
Swansea City
With reluctant bonus points awarded for looking like a madcap goalkeeper shirt plucked straight from the mid-1990s, we simply cannot overlook the fact that Swansea’s latest prematch wear is a truly bewildering, cataclysmic barrage of zigs, zags, prisms and other assorted triangular forms in red, orange and yellow.
Benfica
A strong contender to be the ugliest football shirt unveiled for 2026-27, Benfica’s prematch jersey is a gruesome mottled design made worse by the aggressive, clashing tones of red and purple that don’t work together and are visibly seeping into one another. It looks like a horrible production fault that somehow made it undetected all the way through to a full release. Maybe it’s not too late to recall it?
