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Nike's new kit template is ruining more than just U.S. Soccer's new wardrobe

Nike's template strategy strikes again

By Rob Usry

Okay, so we've all accepted that the two recent U.S. Soccer kit leaks are going to be the new look for our favorite international teams. There's no way around it now, it's happening. Perhaps this humorous note will make you feel a little bit better (probably not). Not only have Nike embarrassed themselves with their new USA designs, they thought their concept was so hot they decided to implement it for several other big nations this year.

Here is England's EURO 2016 kit leaked:

Wow, Nike. Very original design there. You almost had to do some extra work to change the colors of the USA' new home kit.

Then there's Portugal. They have one of the world's famous players in Cristiano Ronaldo. One of the pillars of the Nike brand. Surely they wouldn't just slap a template on their poster boy, right. Wrong...

Then there's France. Their new away kit looks literally like Nike merged the USA's new home and away kit together and slapped a FFF logo on it:

Oof. That's just...pathetic. We're starting to enter 2004 territory where one Nike template reigned over the soccer world. The kits with the numbers inside the circles were all over the world during that time:

Photo credit: Rick Stewart/Getty Images

There's no law against Nike using their ugly new template on some of the biggest nations in the world. It's just extremely lazy. This is just my personal opinion, but the template itself is extremely dull and boring. If they were going to make every kit the same, they could've at least made the design attractive.

This is really poor by Nike. Unfortunately fans will still buy these kits, but if you're as angry as I am about this, you should think twice before giving them your money this year.

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