The Best 2022 World Cup Kits, Ranked

The 2022 World Cup kits arrived in Qatar as the most heavily designed set of shirts the tournament had ever seen, with manufacturers leaning hard into national symbolism, recycled fabrics and protest. Four years on, with the 2026 tournament now behind us, the 2022 World Cup kits have settled into their proper place in kit history, and some of them look better than ever.

Qatar 2022 was a strange tournament to dress for: a winter World Cup in one small country, with more off-pitch argument than any edition before it. That context pushed designers somewhere interesting. Instead of the safe templates of 2014 and 2018, we got Mixtec artwork, origami graphics and one shirt deliberately designed to be invisible.

Nike dressed thirteen of the thirty-two nations, adidas seven, and Puma six. The remaining six went to Hummel, Kappa, New Balance, Majid, One All Sports and Marathon, and it is no coincidence that two of the best shirts of the tournament came from that smaller group. If you want the longer view, our rundown of the greatest World Cup kits of all time puts Qatar in context alongside every other edition.

1. Japan home – the origami blue that stole the show

Japan have been quietly winning the kit game for a decade, and their adidas home shirt in Qatar was the best thing on the pitch. The deep samurai blue base carried an all-over origami graphic, folded paper shapes rendered in tonal blue to suggest speed and movement, with a sharp red flash down each side and across the rear hem.

It helped that the shirt was worn during the two best results of the group stage: Japan beat Germany 2-1 and Spain 2-1 to top Group E, before going out to Croatia on penalties. A great shirt attached to a great story is already a collector favourite. Our best Japan jerseys of all time guide traces how they got here.

2. Mexico away – Mixtec art on black

Mexico’s green home shirt took its cues from Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent, with the deity’s headdress worked into the fabric and the serpent’s head printed inside the back of the neck. Lovely. But the away shirt was the one people actually wanted: a black canvas covered edge to edge in Mixtec-inspired artwork, made entirely from recycled materials.

It works as a garment first and a football kit second, which is why it sold out. Mexico went home at the group stage on goal difference, but the shirt outlived the campaign by a distance.

3. Denmark – the quietest kit ever worn at a World Cup

Hummel did something no other manufacturer has done at a World Cup: they made their own shirt disappear. The Denmark home shirt was a flat, muted red with the chevrons and the Hummel logo rendered in the same tone as the fabric, almost invisible. The away was white, given the same treatment. Hummel said plainly that it did not wish to be visible at a tournament it believed had cost thousands of lives.

Then came the third shirt, all black, chosen as a colour of mourning for the migrant workers who built the stadiums. Qatar’s organising committee rejected the claims and called the shirt trivialising. Whatever your view, it is the most politically loaded kit in World Cup history and, as design, startlingly restrained.

4. Croatia home – the chequerboard, refined

Some designs cannot be improved, only respected. Nike kept the red-and-white chequerboard front and centre, softening the squares into a gentler grid and trimming the collar in clean navy. It is the most recognisable pattern in international football, and it looked sharp on a side that finished third, beating Japan and Brazil on penalties before losing to Argentina in the semi-final.

If the chequerboard is your thing, our best Croatia jerseys of all time piece covers the lot, from USA 94 onwards.

5. Argentina home – the shirt that lifted the trophy

Context does a lot of work here. On its own the adidas Argentina home shirt was a well-judged classic: sky-blue and white stripes, black trim, nothing clever. Then Argentina lost their opener to Saudi Arabia, recovered, and beat France 4-2 on penalties after a 3-3 final at the Lusail Stadium on 18 December. Messi scored twice, Mbappé three, and the shirt became an artefact.

The purple away shirt, with its flame graphic rising from the hem, was the more adventurous of the pair and marked a genuine break from Argentina’s usual palette. In December 2023, six match-worn Messi shirts from the Qatar campaign sold at Sotheby’s for around $7.8 million. For the full story of the stripes, see our best Argentina jerseys of all time guide, and browse the current range in Argentina jerseys.

6. Morocco home – red for the best run in African history

Puma gave Morocco a clean red home shirt nodding to the 1998 Atlas Lions squad, with a green star and subtle tonal detailing. In most tournaments it would have been unremarkable. In Qatar it became the shirt of the month: Morocco beat Belgium, knocked out Spain on penalties, beat Portugal and became the first African and first Arab nation to reach a World Cup semi-final, before losing to France and then Croatia.

Demand for that shirt has not dropped since. Our Morocco football jersey guide explains the sizing and the variants worth hunting down.

7. Ghana and Senegal – Puma’s underrated pair

Ghana’s home shirt wove traditional Ghanaian textile patterning into a white base, with the flag’s red, gold and green in the detailing. They lost a thriller to Portugal 3-2, beat South Korea 3-2 and went out to Uruguay. Senegal, the reigning African champions, wore a white home shirt with the flag at its centre and reached the last sixteen before England ended it. Neither got the attention of the headline kits, which is why both are worth picking up while prices are sensible.

8. Belgium away – Tomorrowland flames and the LOVE row

Belgium’s away shirt was a collaboration with the Tomorrowland festival, a bright tie-dye wash of flame colours that looked like nothing else in Qatar. FIFA then rejected it, objecting to the word LOVE stitched into the collar, and the Belgians had to wear a revised version. A group-stage exit followed, and the shirt is now one of the more collectable oddities of the tournament.

Germany’s white home with its black band and gold crest detailing deserves a mention, as does Spain’s pale blue away with its wavy pattern and red-yellow-red shoulder stripes. Both feature in our best Germany jerseys and best Spain jerseys rundowns.

9. The ones that missed

Not every set landed. The USA home shirt, white with an enlarged centre crest and doubled swooshes, was panned as a template with the volume turned down. England’s white home was fine without being memorable, and Portugal’s diagonal flag-wrap graphic divided opinion sharply. That is the reality of any tournament: four or five great shirts, a dozen decent ones, the rest forgotten by the quarter-finals. Compare the sets in our 2018 World Cup kits and 2014 World Cup kits rankings and the pattern holds.

10. Buying 2022 World Cup kits today

Four years is the awkward age for a football shirt. Retail stock is gone, reissues have not started, and what is left circulates at prices that swing with how the team performed. Argentina and Morocco shirts command a premium; Denmark, Ghana and Serbia can still be found sensibly priced.

Two practical points. Check whether you are buying authentic or replica, because the authentic 2022 World Cup kits used a lighter engineered knit and are sized tighter; our authentic vs replica guide and size guide will save you a return. And fakes from this era are good, so read how to spot counterfeit football jerseys before buying from an unfamiliar seller, then care for it properly to keep the printing intact. FIFA’s archive for Qatar 2022 has the full match record.

Find your 2022 World Cup kit at SideJersey

We stock national team shirts across Europe and South America, plus classic jerseys and retro jerseys for the shirts that came before. Browse the national teams collection, the World Cup 2026 jerseys hub, or the blog for more kit history. Sizing and shipping are covered on our FAQ page, and you can read more about us if this is your first visit.