For the past few years consistently, Arsenal fans have had only praises to offer for Adidas’ designs for their football kits as they have always been immense in quality. Even for the upcoming 2022/23 campaign, both of the Gunners’ Home and Away (black kit) shirts are a beauty that has even rival fans appreciating the detail to attention gone behind it.
Apart from the usually expected quality delivered for Arsenal kits, Adidas has also smashed for other European clubs such as the Ajax Home kit and the Real Madrid purple Away kit.
But despite all this top work, it looks like the designer giant has encountered a misstep that has not gone unnoticed by football fans. As Turkish club Besiktas announced the reveal of the club’s kits on Thursday, fans could not help but point out the similarities between Besiktas‘ new third kit and Arsenal’s third kit from last season.
With the base design of the fabric being almost identical to the Gunners’ previous year’s kit, Adidas looks to have done a recycle job for the Turkish club that has greatly incensed fans of both clubs alike.
This is not the first time that a kit designer has gone with the cheaper recycle option as Nike did reuse the same design of fabric during the 2018/19 season for Barcelona’s training kit and Tottenham’s Away kit. This time around Adidas has opted for this low-budget solution by using the same design as Arsenal’s kit featuring a dark blue base with a zig-zag custom print of grey on top along with white horizontal stripes on the shoulders.
While Besiktas supporters have been very vocal to express their disappointment with Adidas, Arsenal fans have also had a taste of dissatisfaction with the designer’s work for the first time in a while. Perhaps Adidas should put in the work they usually do for the Gunners this time for Besiktas come next season, in a bid to patch things up with the fan base.