Just the 7 different shirts for FC Cologne so far this season
- Published
Bundesliga side FC Cologne have a different football kit for every day of the week
It's a familiar football gripe - a firm favourite among those 'the game's gone' types - that football clubs have too many kits.
Home kits, away kits, third kits, European kits, it's all gone a bit silly. What happened to the good old days when teams wore two designs at most - the famed and historic hue of their home shirt...and mud.
But despite the plethora of merch available in modern football, not many clubs can boast wearing seven different kits throughout the course of a single season - but German side FC Cologne have achieved the rather bizarre feat.
You may be familiar with Cologne's work. After all, they are former Arsenal striker Lukas Podolski's favourite team, and their fans caused a bit of a stir when they popped over to London for a Europa League match against the Gunners earlier in the season.
But after finishing fifth in the league last year, the Billy Goats are rock bottom of the Bundesliga table.
It’s been a torrid season on the pitch but off it, the club's kit manufacturer has been kept busy churning out kit after kit.
Here are the seven that the German side have worn since the beginning of the season.
The red and white one
Cologne's Milos Jojic
This red and white striped kit, seen here worn by Milos Jojic, is Cologne's official home kit. That's usually the strip that football clubs wear throughout the majority of the season, but obviously that hasn’t quite been the case for Cologne.
The red one
Stuttgart v Cologne
It's fair to say Cologne haven't switched things up massively for their away shirt. It's also red.
They wore this one for their Bundesliga defeat against Stuttgart in October 2017, when they conceded a last-minute winner to lose 2-1. Perhaps it was time to try out another kit. Ok then.
The grey and yellow one
Cologne's Jorge Mere Perez
Next up is the team’s third kit which features a grey and neon yellow design with bright yellow shorts that remind you of those old highlighter pens you used to dust off for revision.
Cologne wore this bold design in a 1-0 defeat to Bayern Munich in December 2017.
So that’s three. Pretty standard so far.
The European red one
Cologne's Jannes Horn
This one is a special kit for Cologne’s Europa League campaign. They beat Arsenal 1-0 wearing it in November 2017.
The Gunners have had their own bizarre experiences with football kits, notably this season's blue away strip in which they have lost eight games in all, against such giants as Ostersunds, Swansea, Nottingham Forest.
Cologne’s special kit did the job on the day against the Londoners but they failed to get out of the group stages.
The white one
Cologne v Dortmund
To mark the club’s 70th anniversary, Cologne opted to wear yet another kit (their fifth of the season) paying homage to the kit the club wore for their first league title win back in the 1963-64 season.
The white jersey with pale pinstripes was reissued for Cologne’s 3-2 Bundesliga defeat against Borussia Dortmund in February 2018.
In fact, when this shirt is turned inside-out, you get a different design featuring bolder sponsors and the date of the club being founded, so it could be argued that this counts as two shirts instead of one.
Allow Instagram content?
This article contains content provided by Instagram. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Meta’s Instagram cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’.
“The design features many things our fans have wanted for a long time, such as the old logo,” Cologne’s managing director, Alexander Wehrle said. “Our fans are basically getting two shirts for the price of one.”
Or eight for the price of seven, Alex.
Last season’s dark grey one
Cologne's Sehrou Guirassy
In September 2017, Cologne were forced to pair their 2016-17 dark grey jersey with this season’s lovely neon shorts, to avoid their light grey shirts clashing with Augsburg's white and red-trimmed jerseys.
Cologne fell to a 3-0 defeat.
The new black one
Leipzig v Cologne
This is the last one, we promise. Well, so far.
Cologne opted to debut another shirt (their seventh of the season) when they came up against RB Leipzig on Sunday. The new black shirt and black shorts were required to avoid clashing with their opposition’s red and white kit. Looks like the Billy Goats may have finally learnt their lesson with the whole red and white thing.
The all-black strip proved to be lucky as Cologne went on to win the game 2-1.
For any hard core Cologne fans out there looking to secure all seven shirts worn this season, be warned that it’ll probably set you back an estimated £420, although you might get good value if they're forced to wear it again next season. They've got form for that after all.
MORE SPORT FROM THREE:
Fan-made football kits that are arguably better than the real thing
