The 2014 FIFA World Cup is the biggest sporting event to happen this year. Top clothing brand Nike has released a timeline of 25 moments in football history from 1978 to 2014. In addition, Nike has been creating Brasil’s national home team jersey since 1998. 1998, 2002, 2006, 2010 and 2014. Nike has also created a timeline showing the jersey’s evolution throughout the years.
Below is an except from the site.
With football’s biggest tournament returning to Brasil this summer and half the world’s population tuning in, Nike adopted “Cool under pressure” as the design mantra for 2014, re-focusing on details to reflect the country’s heritage and passion. “The signature that goes across all federation designs is: the best in Nike innovation meets national pride,” says Nike Football Creative Director Martin Lotti. “It’s like designing a second flag for a country, you need to honor the past, the country and its culture.”
Lotti and team set out to create a uniform that delivered on four design pillars: performance, style, soul and sustainability. He describes the kit as having complex simplicity. “From a distance it’s clean and simple, but up close you discover subtle details like laser venting and a small printed crest embedded in the bottom of the number on the back,” Lotti says.
Four years ago, you would have needed 14 players to cover the same distance and perform at the same speed as 11 players today
The carefully embroidered CBF crest over the heart is bigger than previous designs and has metallic gold thread woven in to catch the sun during play. The enlarged crest was born of a direct insight from the athletes grabbing the crest and saying, ‘This is what I’m fighting for.’ “So, we stripped everything else away and let the crest shine though,” Lotti explains.
The crafted quality of the crest is juxtaposed with technical fabrication and thermoregulation. Keeping players dry and comfortable is all the more critical in a climate with temperatures that vary sharply from the north to the south. It took four years to develop the jersey material, which has 56 percent more airflow than previous versions and is composed of 94 percent recycled polyester and 6 percent cotton —giving it the feel and drape of cotton and the thermoregulation properties of polyester.
The slim-cut fit reflects how body types have changed as the game has become faster. Nike scanned the Brasil players and other elite footballers and paired the body scans with tension maps that show how a garment performs in motion.
“It’s quite surprising how much the body type has changed,” Lotti says. “What we found is that four years ago, you would have needed 14 players to cover the same distance and perform at the same speed as 11 players today. The game is just that much faster.”
When Lotti presented the design to Brasil national team coach Luiz Felipe Scolari at the final review, his response was emphatic. “I absolutely love this jersey,” Scolari said. “There’s only one thing missing: a sixth star.”
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