World Cup 2010 Jerseys: Uruguay

March 24th, 2010 | by: Daryl | View Comments

We finish our review of the Group A World Cup 2010 jerseys with Uruguay. The South Africa, France and Mexico shirts were all adidas manufactured, so with Uruguay we finally get our first Puma jersey.

Uruguay are La Celeste, and so the home jerseys are always sky blue. Since 1935 anyway. This year’s away jerseys are gold, but more about those later. Read on for a closer look at Uruguay’s home and away shirts and for my very best Tim Gunn impression as I review the shirts below.

Uruguay Home Shirt

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In some ways you can’t do much with sky blue. It’s just one colour. So Puma were up against it when it came to designing this, but they’ve done a decent job by adding extra details. After some careful consideration, I’m going to say I’m a fan of the multiple suns pattern on this shirt, a nice reference to the sun on the Uurguay flag. There’s always a danger that repeating the same symbol multiple times will look like a badly designed web page, but I think the suns are subtle enough to be present without dominating the shirt. Not all Uruguay fans agree with me there though.

I also like that the red Puma logo (although seems it’s sometimes white, see Forlan above) picks up the small amount of red in the national team crest. Speaking of which, if anyone’s wondering why there are four stars above Uruguay’s crest, it’s to represent Uruguay’s two World Cup wins (1930, 1950) and also Uruguay’s two Olympic gold medals (1924, 1928). Think counting Olympic golds is cheating? Maybe, but remember these were the pre-World Cup Olympics, when the Olympics really was the biggest and best football tournament on the planet.

I like the shape at the bottom of the jersey too, with the change in colour on the hips which should theoretically have a slimming effect on anyone wearing the XXL version of the shirt. Theoretically. But here’s the best thing about this Uruguay home shirt:

If you’re brave enough to pop the collar Eric Cantona style, you’ll find blue and white stripes (a la Uruguay’s flag) underneath. Got to love little details like that, because not many football shirts contain fashion easter eggs like that. Tip of the hat to Football Shirt Culture for spotting the pop collar. So big thumbs up to Puma and Uruguay for their jersey this summer. The home shirt anyway…

Uruguay Away Shirt

Like it for some unknown reason? Find your Uruguay away shirt in the World Cup Blog store

The idea of a gold away shirt (instead of the usual red) isn’t necessarily a bad one. Presumably it’s a reference to the sun again. But they don’t seem to have gone any further than that, and I get the feeling that putting the crest front and center is an attempt to try and hide the fact that nothing else is happening here. I also suspect that Puma spent so much time and effort on the home jersey that everyone forgot that an away designed was even needed, and so at ten minutes to midnight someone drew this very very quickly.

Agree or disagree with the above? What do you think about Uruguay’s home and away jerseys?