Barcelona Go for the Gold with 2022-23 Away Kit — Plus Unveilings from Two German Clubs

Spanish La Liga powerhouses FC Barcelona are setting a new gold standard with their new away kit for the 2022-23 season.

Like their home kit unveiled at the beginning of June, Barça’s away kit for 2022-23 marks the 30th anniversary of the 1992 Summer Olympic Games held in Barcelona. The Nike kit is predominantly gold, like medals won at the Olympics — “the most treasured of all Olympic items and which athletes from all over the world strive to win,” the club’s website says.

“This golden colour also symbolizes all the values that go into winning an Olympic gold medal, such as tenacity, ambition, effort and the constant quest for self-improvement, and also how gold medal winning athletes set the standard for others to aspire to,” the club adds in its announcement. “FC Barcelona also wanted the second strip to be a special nod to the women’s football team, which in recent years has gone on a journey that embodies all these values.”

In recent years, Barça’s women’s team has won three straight Primera División titles, three straight Copas de la Reina, and their first-ever UEFA Women’s Champions League title in 2021. They also two set world records for attendance at a women’s football match in 2022, first against Real Madrid in the Champions League quarterfinal in March (91,553), and then against VfL Wolfsburg in the semifinal in April (91,600).

The sleeve cuffs feature the colours of the Olympic rings — blue, yellow, red, green and black — arranged in the same order as they were found on the medal ribbons from the 1992 Games.

Woven into the front of the shirt is a map of the Eixample, Montjuic and Barceloneta neighbourhoods of the city of Barcelona. Logos — including Nike and Spotify on the front and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees on the back — names and numbers are navy blue. The club crest also appears on the left chest in a one-colour navy blue application.

VfL WOLFSBURG – Home & Away

The aforementioned VfL Wolfsburg have also rolled out both their home and away kits, made by Nike, for the upcoming Bundesliga season. The home kit is Wolfsburg’s signature shade of neon green, with a tonal pattern all over that represents “the pattern of a prototype from main sponsor Volkswagen,” as the club puts it. It also features dark blue accents at the sleeve cuffs and back collar.

Wolfsburg’s away kit is predominantly dark charcoal grey — juuuust this side of black — with neon green and dark blue trim on the sleeve cuffs and collar. Both the home and away kits have a green wolf’s head printed inside the collar.

VfL BOCHUM – Third

Meanwhile, fellow Bundesliga side VfL Bochum debuted a new third kit for 2022-23 in a preseason friendly against Wuppertaler SV on Saturday. It’s the club’s first kit with new supplier Mizuno; they had previously been outfitted by Nike. The third kit is off-white, with textured diagonal lines running in opposite directions across the front to form hoops. The V-neck collar and sleeve cuffs feature blue and off-white striping. The Mizuno logo and sponsor logo on the sport are blue.