Europe's Best and Worst: Rating the 2025-26 Soccer Warm-Up Kits Hoặc: Kit Catwalk: Evaluating Europe's 2025-26 Pre-Match Soccer Apparel – The Hits and Misses

We've already seen some wild and wonderful designs gracing the new home, away, and third kits released for the 2025-26 season around Europe. That garb, however, doesn't come close to comparing with the out-and-out weirdness of the warm-up and pre-match jerseys that sit alongside them.

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With club identity, design language and any semblance of league-mandated decorum out of the window, designers usually tend to let their creativity run amok when it comes to the jerseys worn by players before kick-off, either while limbering up or going through the pre-game formalities.

Here we examine the warm-up tops being worn by many of the major clubs across Europe's top leagues, plus a healthy smattering of other honorable (and in some cases, dishonorable) mentions that have caught our eye so far this season -- from the good, to the bad, to the downright ugly!

GOOD

Barcelona

Lovely stuff from Barça here, who have used their three club colors to create a splendid soundwave design which ripples across the pre-match shirt. The simplicity and uniformity of the tonal logos and crests caps things off nicely, though we're not sure about pairing the jersey up with those obnoxiously green shorts.

Rating: 9/10

Bayern Munich

Marbled in burgundy and shades of blue, Bayern's svelte pre-game shirt is actually much nicer than several of their proper matchday kits this season and could easily slide straight into the line-up as a result. Wunderbar.

Rating: 8.5/10

Arsenal

Perhaps best described as a "riot of color," Arsenal's lively pre-match garb is inspired by London's Notting Hill Carnival and, as such, features vibrant plumage in red, blue and yellow. It's unashamedly loud and lairy, and we really quite like it.

Rating: 8/10

Liverpool

What first appears to be some obscure, baroque pattern found upon the gilded wallpaper of an antiquated stately home is actually a graphic inspired by the wrought iron scrollwork atop the famous Shankly Gates at Anfield. The effect is certainly extravagant, but we dig the symbolism.

Rating: 7.5/10

Atlético Madrid

Atlético's warm-up shirt is essentially a giant print of their club crest stamped across the entire garment, with the bear, strawberry tree, stars and stripes blown up to full size. We definitely approve and would even go as far as to suggest that the design itself could have worked as an away or third kit.

Rating: 7/10

Internazionale

While their home kit itself seems to have divided opinion, Inter's new warm-up top is cool, with a stealthy black base that has been adorned with a kind of "liquid snakeskin" camo print in metallic-blue tones. We probably wouldn't feel comfortable wearing it to formal occasions, but the effect is rather nifty.

Rating: 7/10

Newcastle United

The black-and-orange mottled pattern instantly conjures images of classic Newcastle goalkeeper jerseys of yore, along with the city skyline silhouetted against a vivid sunset. It is a nice throwback and a welcome little tickle of the nostalgia receptors in our 1990s Premier League-steeped brains.

Rating: 7/10

Manchester United

Relatively smart and understated for a pre-match jersey, United's latest design features a red-and-black chevron design that offers a touch of retro chic while also remaining just about abstract enough to pass muster as a wacky warm-up shirt.

Rating: 6.5/10

Everton

With a splashy graphic intended as a nod to the club's new dockside stadium, Everton's squiggly puddle of a pre-match shirt is actually rather attractive, though we have to admit that the material looks a little too cheap and shiny for our liking.

Rating: 6/10

BAD

Juventus

Remarkable stuff from Juve here, who appear to have combined the look of an end-of-pier ice cream parlor with the screen of an old cathode ray TV set which is about to spark out, overheat and then set itself on fire.

Rating: 6.5/10

Benfica

Anyone for checkers? As reluctantly modelled by Ángel Di María here, Benfica's latest pre-match offering is little more than a hectic array of disintegrating squares laid out across the entire shirt. No wonder Di Maria left for Rosario Central.

Rating: 6/10

Wolverhampton Wanderers

Brain-scrambling stuff from Wolves, who have gone for all out gaudiness by presenting a visual depiction of what an explosion at the local zig-zag factory might look like. Just to make matters worse, if you're not sold on the black-and-gold then it's also available in lurid blue.

Rating: 5.5/10

Paris Saint-Germain

Available in red or blue, PSG's warm-up top is again an ode to the Eiffel Tower, with the famous iron lattices of the landmark applied as an all-over graphic. Along with the dizzying grid effect of the architecture, there is also a Hechter stripe plastered on the front and a giant wagon-wheel sized version of the club crest slapped right across the back.

Rating: 5.5/10

Wrexham

With a deadline looming, Wrexham obviously panicked and procured swatches from the local bus seat upholstery company in order to draft their gaudy new warm-up gear for the 2025-26 season. We do like the traditional Welsh patterns on show, but there's a bit too much going on.

Rating: 5/10

AC Milan

Greyed out and covered in a generic rumpled design, Milan's jersey actually looks like it is made entirely from aluminium foil in certain lights and that can never be construed as a good thing.

Rating: 5/10

Chelsea

Fairly bland stuff from Chelsea, with a basic blue shirt adorned only with a generic fractal graphic on the front and the kind of rollover neckline you tend to find on a baby's onesie. It's a shame as the pre-match shirt they wore at the Club World Cup, complete with zany glow-in-the-dark shooting stars, was much better.

Rating: 5/10

Manchester City

It's not often that warm-up strips are outshone by the actual kits but City have rolled through several different iterations of their 2025-26 pre-match uniform over the past month or so, and all of them have been disappointingly grey and drab -- especially once compared to the utterly unhinged lunacy of their new drizzle-inspired third kit.

Rating: 4.5/10

UGLY

Napoli

Napoli are styled by Armani and while their matchday kits tend to ooze Italian elegance, the same can't be said about their skin-tight Cyberpunk warm-up strip. The all-over graphic is supposed to resemble a futuristic suit of armor, with bloops, bleeps and greeblies aplenty along with the kind of chiseled abdominal musculature that might well look OK on professional athletes, but could prove a disaster for any fan with even the merest hint of visible adipose tissue.

Rating: 4.5/10

Real Madrid

While we appreciate that the long-sleeve version isn't exactly helping matters, Madrid do appear to have modelled their warm-up jersey on that strange patchwork jumper your grandmother knitted for you using the last oddments of turquoise yarn she had to hand. Frumpy stuff from a club that generally like to pride themselves on pristine aesthetic.

Rating: 4/10

Tottenham Hotspur

Tottenham's pre-match shirt falls foul of simply having too much going on at one time, with a rather ugly "liquid mercury" graphic jostling for space with the word "SPURS," which has been repeatedly overlaid across the torso in slap-dash fashion. Anybody intending to stare at it for more than a few seconds at a time should probably consider wearing eye protection of some sort.

Rating: 4/10

Borussia Dortmund

Dortmund's new warm-up shirt is aggressively yellow and black to the point that it actually feels like a targeted assault on the human senses. Bound to induce a feeling of nausea within seconds, we suggest that you don't look directly at it for too long for fear of sustaining permanent damage to the retinas -- much like a solar eclipse.

Rating: 3/10

Leeds United

Like Dortmund but without the conviction, Leeds' new pre-match top is a watery, washed-out blur of a kit that somehow looks like it smells a bit musty and damp straight out of the packaging. Totally uninspiring and what's more, it's making our teeth feel a bit itchy just looking at it.

Rating: 2/10

Celtic

A cautionary tale in allowing mere "vibes" to guide your design process, Celtic's horrendous new pre-match jersey for 2025-26 is a wild hotchpotch of colors and shapes, silvery-white with a random grid of neon colors laid over the top. Not even enlisting Glasgow house DJ "VNEE" for the launch for a 90s throwback photoshoot is enough to save our eyes from might be referred to in Scotland as a "boke-inducing stramash."

Rating: 1/10