The Nigeria shirt has become one of the most highly anticipated releases of the football calendar. Their 2018 Naija range broke pre-sale records across the globe and was nominated for some of the fashion industry's highest awards. This article explores the history of Nigeria's soccer jerseys, highlighting the designs that have captured the hearts of fans and become iconic symbols of Nigerian football.
The Nigerian flag, the inspiration behind the team's colors.
Early Influences and Color Choices
Their home shirts take their color from the country's flag used since gaining their Independence in 1960. It either consists of solid green or striped design. Since reaching their first World Cup in 1994 the Super Eagles have been one of the top teams in world football reaching all but one of the final tournaments.
The Iconic 1994 World Cup Jersey
What is it with Nigeria and epic football shirts? Way back before that 2018 World Cup jersey, the West Africans already had plenty of grails in their back catalogue. It’s genuinely tough to decide which was their greatest ever - there is no wrong answer, of course - so we’re throwing our hat on the 1994 adidas home shirt, worn by the Super Eagles’ golden generation in their World Cup campaign in the USA. Close your eyes and picture Jay Jay Okocha weaving that sweet magic wearing this masterpiece.
Nigeria's kits at the 1994 World Cup were a thing of beauty, and arguably represented the high point for African designs at the tournament, before template kits took over. Adidas opted to incorporate traditional pattern and fabric designs in both their home and away kit, with the former a dazzling green design and the latter a truly emblematic shirt that was worn so unforgettably by Rashidi Yekini and co. in the Super Eagles' first ever World Cup bout.
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Nigeria's 1998 World Cup Jersey
This was always going to be a hard act to follow, and Nike went for something different in 1998, dropping the traditional elements but still pulling together an underrated pairing. The white trim on the shoulders and under the arms added dynamism and power to this Eagles selection, and made for a very effective design -- the images of Sunday Oliseh, arms raised, celebrating his thunderbolt against Spain while wearing this shirt is one of the all-time great images of Nigerian football.
The Groundbreaking 2018 World Cup Kit
When a World Cup kit is good, it becomes iconic. Due to the competition’s quadrennial nature, each time the world’s biggest sporting event comes to town is one of a very limited number of opportunities to show the fuck out. Not only do hometown fans rush to swoop up their selection’s latest offering, but so too do neutral fans who want to find a reason to support more teams than just their own.
When Nike revealed its full lineup of World Cup kits for this summer's games, Nigeria's was the obvious star. Sure, eyes may have paused at Australia’s wild yellow kits, or the classic cut of England’s all whites, but it was one flashy white-and-green jersey that stole the show. Nigeria’s triangle patterned home kit became not just the best one revealed for this tournament; it instantly became the hottest piece of soccer gear since Juventus’s Drake-modeled pink jersey from the 2015-2016 season. Alongside the Super Eagles’s hit jersey, Nike also released a collection of other gear, including track jackets, bucket hats, and boards shorts, all boasting the same shades of green and that distinct pattern.
Nigeria's kit in 2018 was a record-breaking football kit even before it hit the shelves. Announced by Nike in February, four months before the World Cup, the dazzling home jersey had already reached 3 million pre-sales before it was even released, and when it was put on sale, sold out online within three minutes. It was the greatest pre-sale success story of any Nike football design which, for an African football nation to eclipse Europe's major clubs, is testament to the genuinely striking look of the shirt.
Released along with a Naija-inspired streetwear range, the kit was both a nod to the retro '94 designs and an effective way of dragging the Eagles into the future. The zig-zags, reminiscent of Yekini and co. 24 years before, were a subtle reference to eagles' wings, while truly capturing the public's imagination and genuinely generating a buzz for this instant collectable.
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The line between football and art had never felt so thin, and Nike -- having taken up the challenge of dressing the 'world's most expressive team' -- certainly didn't let us down.
With the Nigeria kit and collection, what we wanted to do is take a team who there is less expectations on from the media and fans in terms of both on the field performance and kit design. There is less pressure to not mess with the kit than, say, England. While no one expects Nigeria to challenge for the World Cup, we felt that there’s something going on with Nigeria as a young team. There’s a confidence in all these young players, they’re going to go for it and we were attracted to that. We’ve been following them from afar, and the players on social media...a lot of them are playing in some of the top clubs in Europe, and there’s that boldness that aligns in Nigeria and Lagos and in London.
Often, the kit might have an amazing story but sometimes you only have one platform to tell it. If you look at this one from a collection point of view, it’s like, “Why wouldn’t you do that?” Not everyone wants to wear the uniform, but there’s something for everybody there. Every other company would love to have the assets that Nike does, and we’re trying to stretch them into the world of fashion and culture, not just performance.
Nigeria was actually the easiest! That’s everyone having fun. We worked closer with the players and the Nigerian federation to make that happen. A guy here named Matt Wolff, he designed this home kit. He was inspired by the classic 1994 kit with the eagle wings. We kept pushing the design and pushing it and pushing it to see how far we could go until we were like...that just looks fire. We had this super energetic kit on a team where we think we can get it through the board.
Another of our design directors here, a guy named Daniel Farron, got a team of designers across Nike and asked them, “We’ve got this kit, what else do we want to do?” He went about and helped build this whole collection using various designers to really build on the kit and create this energetic moment around Nigeria. Everyone here thought this was the craziest thing going here, this is mad. It just hit in the media and online, it just hit in the right moment where the stars aligned with a design that resonates with people.
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Often, you’re dealing with an older generation to get these kits signed off on, and they won’t always go for newer ideas, even if you know that’s the thing the kids will be into. Fair play to Nigeria though for letting us go for it. The results are amazing and Nigeria is now everyone’s second favorite team.
World Cup 2018: Nigeria fans search for hard-to-find jerseys
Design Process and Influences
To get a better sense of how an instantly-iconic World Cup kit comes to life, we hit up Nike FC’s Design Director Pete Hoppins, who is in charge of not just the jerseys worn in Russia this summer but also the apparel that brings the “story” of a country to life through soccer.
We work to a timeline, a plan...if you have to make 100,000 jerseys or a million jerseys, those jerseys have to be manufactured and shipped. We have a calendar that is over two years out from the event. For example, we’re designing Euro Championship jerseys for 2020 right now. We’re almost finished. The kick-off for the process starts even earlier than that sometimes, as much as three years out.
We use the big moments in time, Euros or World Cup, to rally behind a new innovation. A new aesthetic for Nike Football. We start off working with our innovation partners within designs to create a chassis for the kit, a new innovation. That is often a fabric or yarn that’s going to increase performance; lighter weight, or faster drying than before. That’s the goal: improve on the chassis of the uniform with design. To align with that innovation, we create a new aesthetic and look for Nike Football. That can be something that helps tell the story of that innovation, or a mood and feeling that we want to portray to the world. We want to also help the players feel faster and more skillful than they have ever felt before.
We get briefed by the various countries or clubs around what they want in their kit...or what they don’t want to see. If you take Brazil, for example, it’s going to be yellow. There’s no skirting around that one, this is what it’s going to be. That’s more about us bringing out the soul of Brazil into something that is always a yellow jersey. Some countries will have very specific briefs of what they want, others won’t. We’ll always do our own research ourselves, within those countries, to capture the mood and feeling of that country and what they want to stand up for. Each country is completely different, what suits their style. Brazil, it’s always clean and purist, always vibrant but it also has this kind of toughness to it. Then you look at someone like France, and it’s always about sophistication and style. WIthin that, there are still some shared Nike filter that brings the entire collection together.
The Future of Nigeria's Kits
Nigeria had proved themselves to be Africa's kings of kits, although the less said about their 2002 and 2010 attire the better.
Nigeria’s shirt has become one of the most highly anticipated releases of the football calendar following their famous 2018 World Cup shirt and future-classic 2020 'agbada robe' shirt design.
Africa's World Cup fashion choices have been diverse and dynamic over the years, with some of the best efforts ranking among the most iconic football shirts ever seen, and others best resigned to the bargain bins. The continent has regularly been at the forefront of World Cup fashion; be it the simple, timeless designs that heralded Africa's arrival and impact on the grandest stage, to concept designs that have pushed boundaries and created storms of excitement upon their release, the continent's efforts have consistently generated headlines.
Nigeria had proved themselves to be Africa's kings of kits.
The Super Eagles sporting their 2018 World Cup jerseys.
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