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Barcelona are limping through the season, without Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez, relying on depth that might not exist. The roster looks very different, and so do their jerseys. That last bit could change yet again if these leaked Barcelona kits are to be believed.
Before the season, the Blaugrana changed their signature vertical red and blue stripes, which had been their home design, in some form, for the entire history of the club. They changed to horizontal rings. The move is worse in principle than it is in practice (the jerseys don’t look bad at all on the field), but the team might be going back to the verticals next season, if this leaked image from Mundo Deportivo is any indication:
It likely isn’t any indication - we’re months and months away from the official unveiling of most teams’ kits for 2016-17 - but we thought it was strange that the club would go away from the traditional verticals in the first place. The graphic above showing the leaked Barcelona kits details that the home jerseys would be a throwback to the 1990-92 kits, and the aways would be a version of the alternate kits between 1992 and 1995.
Barca’s jersey sales had been just fine, by the way. The Spanish side was third in the world in jersey sales in 2014.
In any case and in any kits, Neymar looks good and plays well. The Brazilian scored four times on Saturday to keep Barcelona at the top of a wobbly La Liga table; they’re level on points with Real Madrid and Celta Vigo. If they can just hang around long enough for Messi to get healthy - he might be fit in time for El Clasico at Madrid in November - they’d get some help from Arda Turan in January, and they might be able to once again spark some classic Barcelona magic in the spring and early summer.
Grant Burkhardt is on Twitter @grantburkhardt and you can email him about footie at burkhardt@the18.com
