For all the new signings, coaches, tactics and even stadiums on display, there is always one aspect of a fresh season that we tend to revel in more than most; the worldwide flurry of exciting new home, away, third and fourth kits that inevitably come with the arrival of a new campaign.
With several weeks of the 2025-26 season already played, you’ve had plenty of time to become acquainted with many of the various new jerseys that have been released by the clubs populating the top leagues around the globe.
We’ve already scoured, rated and slated a number of the kits unveiled by the big sides across Europe, with Liverpool leaving it late to unveil one of the loveliest shirts that you’ll see in the Premier League this season.
– Premier League kit ranking: Every 2025-26 jersey released
– How clubs got their colors: soccer’s historic, iconic jerseys
– Concept, design, launch: How a Premier League kit is created
However, as is generally the case, there are also many sides just below the elite level that have made it their business to produce high-fashion and slickly stylish designs. You know the ones: the kind that send both supporters and kit aficionados into a flurry of excitement, setting them off on quests to acquire said kits for their own personal collections.
It’s become our mission to help draw attention to these kits lest they go completely under the radar, which would be utterly unforgivable judging by the amount of truly chic new football shirts that have been rolled out over the past few months.
Having vastly upped their game over the past decade, Ajax just don’t seem to miss with their third shirts these days, and the 2025-26 model is certainly worthy of inclusion. The light beige jersey has minimal blue and maroon trim, but the real star of the show is the achingly beautiful historic crest, which dates from 1928 and has returned to the Amsterdam giants’ kit this season to mark their 125th anniversary.
They may not be the most famous football club from the Buenos Aires province, but Aldosivi have certainly made a bold claim to being the best dressed with the launch of an exquisitely stylish third shirt. It is inspired by their coastal locale and the Italian fisherman who travelled to their Argentine port city of Mar del Plata and bought their Catholic faith with them — hence all the religious iconography printed within the lush green stripes.
An away kit that pays testament to the skills of local craftspeople, Spanish club Almeria’s funky blue kit is notable for the wonderful sunflower mosaic pattern covering the main trunk of the shirt. Inspired by Andalusian ceramic art, the graphic is specifically intended to resemble the kind of ornamentation found on plates and tableware in the Spanish region.
With several high-profile players on board for 2025-26 (including Paul Pogba, Eric Dier and Ansu Fati) it’s only fitting that Les Monegasques look the part too. Pairing nicely with that emblematic red and white home shirt, the away variant is a sumptuous deep blue-and-gold design that features a swirled pattern in the material, which itself is inspired by the brushed sand and tranquil zen of Monaco’s idyllic Japanese Garden.
Avaí home (Volt)
It’s perhaps fitting that Avaí launched their prim new home kit with help from the Riachuelo Nautical Club as the jersey itself could easily pass for a vintage Etonian rowing shirt. Simple, elegant and the use of rich, lustrous colours just oozes class.
A late addition to Adidas’ phalanx of gorgeous retro third kits, Bayern’s latest Oktoberfest jersey is perhaps the finest yet thanks to its muted cream and minty green colourway to the traditional embroidering around the crest. The jersey also implements a “two birds with one stone” approach to marking anniversaries, being a nod to both Bayern’s 125th birthday and it being 190 years since the first Weisn celebrations took place in Munich.
Technically designated as the Norwegian club’s “third alternate kit,” the icy blue-and-white design is inspired by the enormous Svartisen glacier and as such features a crystalline, geometric graphic. Bodo/Glimt are also keen to draw attention to the fact that Svartisen is gradually melting and thus issue a stark reminder that it could completely disappear within the next few decades if climate change is not urgently addressed.
It feels weird to say, but Burton Albion are actually one of the best-dressed teams in European football this season thanks to a batch of kits created by TAG sportswear. The home kit is a half-and-half design inspired by the first shirt the Brewers ever wore but the corresponding away kit — resplendent in bottle blue — is a cut above.
Inspired by the River Trent that flows through the town and has powered its famous brewing industry for centuries, the shirt also has a rippled print in the fabric and is capped off by that sumptuous monogrammed club crest.
Cádiz away (Macron)
A dark red-and-gold design that comes with a gridded print inspired by traditional southern Spanish art and in particular the delicate patterns of ceramic azulejo tiles which have been used to adorn houses, churches, palaces, restaurants, schools, train stations and other such buildings all across Iberia since the 13th century.
CE Jupiter home (Meyba)
Jupiter are a regional Catalonian club who are based in Barcelona and play just across the city from the Camp Nou. Playing in a similar striped Blaugrana kit to their more illustrious cross-town neighbours, the team from Camp Municipal La Verneda have mixed things up this season with a washed-out colour palette and a set of retro gold names and numbers that are utterly, utterly dreamy. It’s like looking at the best kit LaLiga giants Barcelona never had.
When it comes to consistent colours, Dresden have never played in anything other than gold-and-black at home so the base palette of their 2025-26 strip shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. However, closer inspection reveals that the material is actually pressed with a flocked motif inspired by the famous Zwiebelmuster (blue onion pattern) that was created by the Meissen porcelain factory in 1739 and went onto become one of the most popular ceramic designs in the world, having now been in production for over three centuries.
It just so happens that 2025 is both the 77th anniversary of FC Cologne and the 777th anniversary of the Kölner Domkirche cathedral, which has stood in the centre of the German city since 1248. As such, the Billy Goats have produced a limited edition anniversary kit that on first inspection appears to be a fairly standard black-and-gold jersey. Look closer, and you will find that the material also has a lavish repeating pattern inspired by the cathedral’s masonry work and internal decor.
FC Luzern anniversary kit (Errea)
Swiss side Luzern have marked their anniversary by releasing a special edition “1901” strip that is dripping with class. Pre-emptively marking next summer’s 125th birthday in style, the dark navy ensemble has classy taping over the shoulders and the name of their hometown proudly stamped across the midriff in large white lettering. Lovely.
Adidas have produced a range of delightful retro-infused third shirts for their biggest clients this season with Liverpool, Manchester United, AS Roma and Lyon to name but a selection of the notable beneficiaries. However, for our money Flamengo have landed the best of the bunch with an off-white and gold design that also features subtle horizontal “waves” and an elegant club crest that both nod toward the Brazilian side’s origins as a rowing club.
This effort is a luxurious purple-and-gold number that comes complete with a polo collar and a stylish, sublimated print made up of the various flora and fauna of the Brazilian pampas grasslands, and the Gaucho ranchers that still work the land there. The hope is to raise awareness about local environmental preservation, and of course to look ridiculously sharp while doing so.
In what might be a first as far as football kit design is concerned, Vitória de Guimarães’s new third kit is apparently inspired by the colours and markings of the indoor basketball court at the club’s multi-sport facility. The shirt itself is a lesson in how shirt can stand out with a simple design and bold colour choices.
Hibernian anniversary kit (Joma)
Mimicking the very first shirt ever worn by Hibs precisely 150 years ago, the all-white “Heritage” kit is almost ghostly in appearance with just the original Irish harp club crest picked out in black. It’s said that the team played their first match against Hearts on Christmas Day in 1875, with all players instructed to turn up wearing a white knitted Guernsey sweater with the harp stitched onto the chest.
While Kaiserslautern’s regulation home kit for the new season is nothing to write home about, the anniversary shirt that was released alongside it most certainly bears a second look. The deep, blood red-and-gold design also has darker stripes that are actually made up from fragments of all of the German club’s former crests, taking in every iteration of the side over the past 125 years — from the current logo, to that of FC 1900 Kaiserslautern and even FC Bavaria, 1902 Kaiserslautern and FV Phönix Kaiserslautern, all of which merged throughout the 1920s to form the club we know today.
In a somewhat unlikely turn of events, Welsh side Newport linked arms with Athletic Club to celebrate the historic friendship between the two clubs that stretches back almost 100 years. It all began during the Spanish civil war of 1937 when thousands of Basque children were evacuated to Britain, many of whom were taken in and cared for by the local community in Newport.
To mark that special relationship, the League Two club have produced a red-and-white striped away kit that actually somehow looks better than anything Athletic have ever worn, at least in recent memory.
While the design itself is fairly straightforward, we simply have to commend Oxford for creating a third shirt in the most eye-popping shade of teal imaginable. Positively luminous, the base tone is then lifted into the stratosphere by the addition of neon pink trim. The teal is a visual reference to the oxidised copper that sits atop Oxford’s iconic spires while the pink is a nod to the gaudy spray-paint that was used to vandalise the city’s famous Ox statue in 2011.
It’s loud and lairy, but we love it all the same.
Usually draped in red and blue, the 2025-26 Real Avila home kit is pinker than usual and all the more handsome for it. Looking like it was airdropped straight out of the 1980s, the shirt has a slimline cut, shoulder taping and the very snazziest of geometric prints.
The blue, banded Sampdoria home kit is an undeniable, tried and true staple of the classic football kit sphere and rarely does it ever look anything less than resplendent. Having tinkered with the design slightly in recent years, it’s nice to see that Macron have done the decent thing and kept the creative flourishes to a minimum this season, instead letting that beautiful Blucerchiati band take centre stage.
While renowned for their glaring orange home kit, Ukrainian side Shakhtar have opted for a pale cream-and-gold third shirt this year which also bears an all-over repeating pattern inspired by their club insignia. The logos are all applied in a burnished tone to add to the opulent feel and the national colours of blue and yellow border the central crest itself as a subtle, yet proud, display of unity and strength.
Sorrento have been the talk of the town in football kit circles this summer after releasing a slew of wonderfully deluxe 2025-26 jerseys that are all inspired by Mediterranean culture. The home version is a salute to Renaissance art and in particular local Sorrentine wood inlay work, the type of which can be found on the elaborate writing desk at the Correale Museum of Sorrento.
The five diamonds “inlaid” across the chest are also a symbol of the Neapolitan city and appear on the coat of arms.
With kits designed in collaboration with Drake’s Nocha fashion label, Venezia are aiming to become the hippest football club on planet Earth and on the evidence provided, they are making a decent fist of it. The Italian side’s latest away kit is based on silhouettes of classic strips of yore, with smart detailing borrowed from the Venetian Renaissance masters. The beige body looks almost silken, and the claret shoulder yoke coupled with the orange-and-green checkered trim just finishes the whole thing off perfectly.
We thought Young Boys knocked it out of the park with their aquamarine away kit last season but if anything, they’ve somehow managed to step things up for 2025-26 with a blushed rose, claret and gold shirt inspired by the fabulously ornate fountains that are dotted all around Bern old town. It’s also worth pointing out that the Swiss side’s initialised crest is an absolute beauty and would enhance just about any kit.
