It’s hard not to notice them: on the pitches, the players’ shoes are a bright pink that contrasts sharply with the green of the pitch. The French team also seems to have succumbed to this trend. During the match against Senegal on Tuesday June 16, brilliantly won 3-1 by the Blues, few players wore another color on their feet.
However, this uniformity is not the result of an agreement between equipment manufacturers or players. Unlike the rest of the equipment provided by the team’s sponsor brand, players are free to choose their shoe supplier, who will obviously pay them for this advertising. To make this investment profitable, major brands like Adidas, Nike, Puma or New Balance seek, on the contrary, to stand out during major competitions thanks to exclusive, easily identifiable models and colors.
This year, without any apparent consultation, they seem to have had the same idea: a particularly visible fuchsia pink. Whether they were in front of their television or seated in the furthest stands, spectators had to be able to identify the shoes of their favorite player. But with one and the same color, the opposite effect occurs: it becomes almost impossible to differentiate Kylian Mbappé’s Nike Mercurial from Ousmane Dembélé’s Adidas F50 Hyperfast cleats.
The official photo of the Blues 🇫🇷 for the World Cup 🤩
📸 @FFF pic.twitter.com/Fy05H2DT4u
— Eurosport France (@Eurosport_FR) June 6, 2026
I manage my choices I authorize
A turning point in 1995
However, equipment manufacturers work on their collections well in advance, sometimes up to two years before a competition. This year, designers seem to have been influenced by trend forecasting agencies, such as WGSN, which identified “electric fuchsia” as one of the key colors for summer 2026 in 2024.
Beyond the marketing aspect, these bright colors also have sporting interest. Such visible studs make it easier to spot teammates on the field. Players can thus locate their partners without having to raise their heads, which promotes the speed of the game. An intuition that Franck Ribéry already had in 2008 when he played for Bayern Munich wearing pink Nikes.
Yet there was a time when this type of fantasy was almost unthinkable. In major competitions, players have long worn exclusively black crampons. The turning point came in 1995, during the Champions League final. Marco Simone, AC Milan striker equipped by Valsport, then attracts attention by wearing white shoes. This audacity opens the way to a new era and, gradually, the colors multiply. Liberian player George Weah then opted for an all-red pair while Nike launched a gray and blue model.
For several years, the lawns offered a veritable rainbow of colors. But trends gradually took over. If pink dominates today in 2026, orange had established itself the previous year, while blue reigned in 2022. It now remains to be seen which color will be the next to seduce equipment manufacturers and invade the fields during future competitions.
