The 10 best Argentina World Cup kits of all time

While Argentina have stuck to their dark blue away shirt for almost their entire history, they haven’t been afraid of experimenting with new detailing across the design. In 2006, adidas added white and light blue sections to the shirt, while the adidas Three Stripe branding alternated between the two colours. The whole shirt was finished with some thin gold sections, perfect for a Messi to make his World Cup debut (a 6-0 win against Serbia and Montenegro, if you’re interested).

While it’s the 2014 away kit that was associated with Argentina and Messi’s near-miss in 2014, the final was the only time they wore the shirt. For the rest of the tournament, they opted for their classic stripes. That year’s design featured the addition of a black trim – for the first time since the 2006 World Cup – as well as a slight gradient effect on each of the light blue stripes and subtle diagonal stripe detailing across the centre.

Argentina’s 1998 home kit was a simple masterclass – all thick blue stripes and a smart black collar – but it's that year’s away shirt that will go down in history. It was in the dark blue change kit, complete with a huge light blue V neck and stripes down each side, that Argentina took on England. By the end of the match, Michael Owen had cemented himself as a great in the making, David Beckham had been sent off and Argentina had won on penalties.

Whatever you think of the 2022 home kit – a solid if unspectacular design – it will forever be the shirt in which Lionel Messi won the World Cup. As if that isn’t enough, there are some design touches that help to elevate it beyond just the classic Albiceleste colours, including the two thinner lines on the back and the gold sun on the back of the neck. In the end, it was a worthy companion for Messi’s coronation.

On first appearance, Argentina’s 2018 seems like a pretty standard white-and-blue affair, but adidas gave the stripes a subtle detail. Across the shirt, a pixelated laurel pattern was used for added detailing, a nod to the ring of laurel leaves that runs around the gold Argentinian coat of arms on each shirt. The team’s traditional colour scheme is a classic for a reason, but this design showed that there can still be slight tweaks and improvements along the way.

If the home shirt makes the list mostly because of the final, then the 2022 away shirt is here on appearance alone. Easily one of the stand-outs from this year’s tournament, the shirt combined a purple colour palette – a nod to the fight for gender equality – with a bold flame motif that covered the bottom half of the shirt. Argentina only wore their away kit once on their path to victory, but it still deserves its status as a World Cup classic.

When Argentina lost the first game of this year’s World Cup to Saudi Arabia, fans could be forgiven for thinking that 2014 would be the closest Messi ever got to the biggest prize of all. In that final – which Germany won in extra time – the Argentinian team wore arguably their best away shirt. The dark blue design combined horizontal stripes with a gradient effect, gradually fading into a lighter shade as it reached the bottom. Finishing it all off was a gold trim up each side. Sadly, for most people, it’ll always be associated with Messi’s tears at the final whistle.

Argentina opted to put a twist on their traditional dark blue away shirt in the early 1990s. The design featured the addition of three rows of black diamonds on one side, as well as a black collar and, crucially, the central adidas branding. Looking back, it is undoubtedly one of Argentina’s best, but it does share remarkable similarities with the shirts worn by Spain and Norway at that year’s tournament.

Before 2022, 1986 was arguably Argentina’s finest World Cup. Driven forward by Diego Armando Maradona, Argentina defeated all before them and won the tournament for the second time. The Le Coq Sportif kit they wore for most games, including the final, has gone down in history because of that victory. It’s also the perfect ideal of what an Argentina kit should look like: those Albiceleste stripes with hardly any distractions.

The debacle surrounding Argentina’s 1986 away kit has become a well-told story. At the tournament, the would-be champions were given their heavy cotton shirts before they played Uruguay in the round of 16. Despite Argentina’s progress, players complained about being uncomfortable during the game and the kit man was forced to adapt. He found the perfect solution at a local market and the team wore it for the next game. Argentina beat England, Maradona scored two of the most famous goals of all time and the kit became the stuff of legend.