#7 - France 1984-86 Home Shirt by adidas

It's not often you can say that a football shirt is so good that it prompts a number of later tributes to be released, but that's what we have here. France's home shirt, most commonly associated with their winning Euro 84 campaign, was rubber-stamped as a classic when its national team finally staked its claim to be one of the best in the world, and with good reason.

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This was unquestionably one of those moments when you wondered why a shirt with just a few simple elements hadn't been thought of before. It is, at the end of the day, just a blue shirt with one broad red stripe, three thinner white ones below it and three more along the sleeves (as seen on all adidas shirts at the time). So why is it such a beautiful thing?

#38 - France 1980-84 Home Shirt by adidas

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Forgive me for taking a slightly anglophilic approach as I look back at this beautiful France home kit, worn from 1980 to 1984 by the likes of Michel Platini, Jean Tigana and Dominque Rochteau.

Although designs such as this may have been common on the continent in the early 1980s, in the UK at the time this manner of football clobber was the very peak of foreign glamour and mystery. Especially when you consider so many British contemporary kits of the era were still stuck in the 70s.

#46 - France 2009-10 Home Shirt (Techfit Version) by adidas

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Ah, Techfit. Much maligned, largely abandoned, the adidas technology started out as a feature of underwear and shifted to football shirts proper as part of the “underwear as outerwear” phenomenon that also influenced England’s 2010 Umbro Away shirt.

The principle - most clearly demonstrated in the shirt France took to the Croke Park field in when facing Ireland in the World Cup 2010 qualification playoff first leg - as well as purportedly providing muscular support, manifested a logic that a tight shirt with wicking properties could remove sweat and allow it to drip off the shirt or evaporate. The science suggested that the amalgamation of baselayer and outer shirt was vital in order to prevent the distinct latter from compromising this process and weighing down the player with the “wick-ed” moisture.