Not visible in the pic I posted but there's also yellow on the #s. For soccer, the socks are part of the uni. Their road unis are normal patriotic colors, thankfully.
Except that those countries wear different colors for historical, nationalistic reasons, not Nike wanting Oregon colors everywhere. Green & gold are Australia's national colors, whereas our national colors are, you guessed it, red white & blue:
- Green and gold are the colours ofAustralia's national floral emblem – the golden wattle. Since the late 1800sgreen and gold have been popularly accepted as the national sporting colours, both locally and around the world. In 1984 green and gold were formally recognised as the national colours.
Info on Italy, Netherlands & others:
Why do Italian national sports teams mostly wear blue, rather than one of the colours represented on the flag?
According to their wonderful book
Tutti i colori del calcio (All the Colours of Football), authors Sergio Salvi and Alessandro Savorelli acknowledge that although national teams generally wear strips based on the colours of their respective national flags, this is not always the case:
The Dutch wear orange jerseys, the colour of the House of Orange-Nassau;
the Germans wear white shirts, from the flag of Prussia; and the Slovenians green and white, the traditional colours of the capital city of Ljubljana. The Indians have an all-blue strip and the Australians green and gold!
The Italians' football and rugby (both codes) teams wear blue in honour of the House of Savoy, under whom
Italy was unified in 1861.
Nader Fekri, Hebden Bridge, W Yorks
THIS SPORTING LIFE
Why do Italian national sporting teams play in blue colours?
Frazer Orr, Dublin Ireland
- This was recently a question in a Football Italia competition of Channel 4. I'm not sure what the correct answer was but the choices were: - A) The colours don't clash with any other domestic Italian football team (probably not true as several have blue in their strips). B) It's the colour of the Italian Royal Family. C) It's the colour of the sea.
Alex Colwill, Newcastle England
- It was the colour of the Italian royal family.
Rufus, Bristol UK
- Italian sports teams play in blue shirts rather than the colours of their national flag in a custom dating back to the country's pre-republican days. Blue was the official colour of the Royal House of Savoy and this tribute to the Italian monarchy survives today.
Max Wurr, Stanmore UK
- Italy are not alone in playing in colours which do not reflect the national flag: Germany (white and black) and the Netherland (orange) are the most prominent. The Netherlands' colours represent the House of Orange, but I've no idea why Germany play in white and black. And why is their change strip green?
Greg Stringer, Warrington, Cheshire
- The change strip of Germany is green in recognition of the fact that after WWII, the first team to play against them was the Republic of Ireland.
Paul Hunter, Cork Ireland
