Rating this year's Christmas sweaters from top soccer teams
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Chris Wright, Toe Poke writer
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, and football clubs have once again piled the shelves of their online stores with a wide selection of festive knitwear.
In the past, many clubs had taken a cheap and cheerful approach to their seasonal apparel, but the bar has been raised for Christmas 2023 with some legitimately stylish efforts available.
In some designs, clubs pay tributes to their stadiums, statues and home cities, while others are based on classic kits. Inevitably there are some that fall firmly into the category of ugly sweaters, with varying results.
After delving into the vast smorgasbord of Christmas sweaters released by some of the biggest clubs in the game this year, we have selected the standouts and given each a rating out of 10 to separate the ones with the most seasonal style from those that should be sent back to the North Pole.
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Hailing from the fashion capital of the world, Milan are treading a fine line between stylish and kitsch, but the result — a pattern featuring tinsel and tin soldiers from Tchaikovsky’s classic Christmas ballet “The Nutcracker” — is rather refined compared to some of the more garish designs on here.
Ajax’s sweater this year, modelled by Jorrel Hato, elevates the conventional Fair Isle pattern by adding silhouetted buildings lifted from the skyline of Amsterdam: the Royal Palace, the De Gooyer windmill and the club’s own Johan Cruyff Arena. Christmassy and educational in equal measure.
Christmas sweaters inspired by popular kits from the past are something of a theme this year. The Gunners’ nostalgic offering, worn by Laura Wienroither, harks back to the jersey worn by the Invincibles of 2003-04, with former sponsor O2’s logo reworked into a festive wreath. The detail is impressive, right down to the Premier League “patches” on the sleeves that replace the rampant lion with a frolicking reindeer. It puts the club’s other effort, worn by Gabriel Jesus, in the shade.
Barcelona’s best Christmas sweater features a goofy reindeer with blaugrana antlers rendered in 8-bit style. The little chap also wearing knee-high Barça socks is just the icing on the Christmas cake. Ingrid Engen certainly seems pleased with it.
Bayern have come up trumps with a brilliantly over-the-top patchwork design that features the club crest, motto, Munich town hall, their training ground, stars, snowflakes and even the Bavarian Alps. Harry Kane might be all smiles with Raphaël Guerreiro at the top of the page, but you can tell deep down he’s deeply envious of his teammate for getting to model the prime product while he’s been palmed off with the comparatively plain navy alternative.
Never ones to hold back when it comes to lavish Christmas wear, Dortmund have hung their 2023 design with just about every conceivable seasonal garland — from gingerbread to boughs of holly; from tannenbaums to candy canes; and all in their trademark black and yellow.
Despite turning out in ’90s-inspired kits this season, Chelsea haven’t extended that theme to their Christmas catalogue. Instead, the Blues have released a fairly routine knitted pattern, which has elements of the club crest alongside basic Yuletide staples such as reindeer, trees and snowflakes.
With no fixtures of any kind until March next year, England fans will be able to tide themselves over by throwing on this smart Christmas jumper. The design is actually rather nice, with swatches of past kits jumbled up and used to make a patchwork effect. Given the usual winter weather, England fans may well be able to wear this when Brazil pitch up at Wembley for a friendly in four months’ time.
It’ll be a cold Christmas at Everton after they were deducted 10 points by the Premier League, but at least the club has provided their fans with a belter of a Christmas jumper to help warm their cockles. The fabulous quarter-zip fleece features detailed reindeer, the club crest and a full Nordic ski scene complete with overhead cable cars.
FIFA
As the most un-Christmassy entity on the face of the planet, it’s unclear as to why FIFA felt the need to produce their own official Christmas jumper or exactly who they think will buy it. The design is smart enough — to the point that you could probably, at a push, wear it outside of the house (though trying to ensure no one clocks the large FIFA logo on the sleeve). The only downside is that you won’t be able to look any of your nearest and dearest in the eye while wearing it.
Last season’s Champions League finalists often incorporate a blue serpent (a symbol of the city of Milan) into their kits and apparel, and now they have added it to what would otherwise be a fairly standard item of Nerazzuri knitwear.
Initially we were tempted to knock off marks for that eyesore of a crest (it’s been six years since they “updated” it and we’re still salty). But the Bianconeri are actually getting a point docked for merely printing a black jacquard star pattern on a basic white crewneck sweatshirt.
Simple, understated and redolent in red, this design is a straightforward Fair Isle pattern that incorporates the Liverpool club crest and looks the part without falling into full-blown “ugly sweater” territory.
This City Christmas sweater is another one based on a classic kit. The shirt from 1989-90 was presumably selected as it already had an icicle-esque chevron pattern worked into the fabric. A few decorative fir trees are added to the mix while, across the midriff, Santa replaces the name of erstwhile sponsor, Brother.
United have quite a range of festive attire this year, but the most Christmassy of their selection of sweaters must be this one, proving that sometimes less is more. The fir trees and Santa’s sleigh running across the chest and the large snowflakes on the sleeves are more than the sum of their parts and stand out nicely above the block green torso. In fact, if you didn’t notice the thin line bearing the club’s name, you wouldn’t even realise it was an item of club merch.
Still revelling in their historic Serie A win last season, Napoli are eager to remind us that they remain champions of Italy as we approach the midpoint of what has proven to be a tricky title defence. With Christmas knitwear designed by Emporio Armani, you’d think it would have a little more pizzazz, but this doesn’t quite hit the mark.
Let’s face it, Forest fans need a bit of festive cheer. Given the team’s form, it looks like a trip down memory lane will have to suffice. The club have a couple of retro kit-inspired designs to choose from, but the one that leaps out is the Yuletide version of their nausea-inducing, cult classic 1995-97 away kit. It’s probably best not to wear a knitted version of a kit nicknamed the “yellow vomit” shirt around the dinner table, mind.
Teasing a new signing for the winter window, PSG have added the name and number of a mysterious new player (Noëlinho) and a new sponsor (Xmas Airways) to their kit-inspired sweater. While we haven’t yet scouted the new signing, we can assume he operates well as the focal point of a Christmas tree formation.
In a rare departure from their classic club colours, Real have laid on a lustrous green, red and gold design. Modelled by Dani Carvajal, the sweater has the Los Blancos crest front and centre amid a bustling woven pattern of gifts, baubles and candy.
Roma have a couple of formulaic designs to pick from, but the best is the red and yellow knitted jumper that adds the club’s wolf head crest to a Christmas pattern that includes reindeer and snowflakes.
The sleeves on Tottenham’s knitwear have adopted a high line, just how coach Ange Postecoglou likes his defence. We don’t recall ever seeing a club offer a knitted vest option as part of their Christmas range before, but it really works here.
What better way to ring in the joyous holiday season than by donning a festive homage to the official governing body of United States soccer? The faux patchwork monstrosity is deliberately ugly (hence the name) but that doesn’t mean it’s any less of a shambles. Had it been rendered in knitwear, it might have worked, but printed on a polyester crewneck sweater, it’s just ghastly.
West Ham have adapted their club anthem to produce a fine, pun-based Christmas jumper. What’s more, goalkeeper Lukasz Fabianski looks positively thrilled to be on modelling duty.
Images courtesy of acmilan.com, ajax.nl, arsenal.com, fcbarcelona.com, fcbayern.com, bvbonlineshop.com, chelseamegastore.com, englandstore.com, evertonfc.com, fifa.com, inter.it, juventus.com, liverpoolfc.com, mancity.com, manutd.com, sscnapoli.it, nottinghamforest.co.uk, psg.fr, realmadrid.com, asroma.com, tottenhamhotspur.com, ussoccer.com, whufc.com