Germany's Adidas Farewell Jersey: The End of a 70-Year Partnership
Published September 4, 2026 · By Dermot McGuckin, News Editor
It's not often a soccer jersey gets a proper send-off. This one has. Adidas has confirmed that Germany will wear a specially made farewell jersey for their remaining games of 2026 — the last time the national team takes the field in the three stripes before Nike takes over the DFB deal from 2027. A partnership that started back in 1954 is being closed out with its own bespoke jersey, and for anyone who cares about kit culture, that's a moment worth marking.
If reading this has you wanting a piece of German soccer history for your own collection, our premium mystery soccer jersey box is packed with authentic jerseys from clubs and countries across the game — the kind of retro and modern shirts that get harder to find the moment a deal like this ends.
A farewell jersey, and why that's rare
Manufacturers change all the time. What almost never happens is a brand and a nation marking the split with a one-off jersey built purely to say goodbye. Adidas CEO Björn Gulden confirmed the plan, and leaked images point to a predominantly black design — though the finer details are still emerging and worth treating as unconfirmed until the official reveal. The point isn't the colorway. The point is that a “last dance” jersey is, by definition, a limited moment in time — and those are exactly the shirts collectors chase years later.
Seven decades in three stripes
Adidas has outfitted Germany's national teams since 1954, the year of the “Miracle of Bern.” Across that run, Germany lifted the men's World Cup four times — in 1954, 1974, 1990 and 2014 — every one of them in Adidas. Few partnerships in world sports are so tightly wound into a country's soccer identity. When you picture a classic Germany jersey, you're almost certainly picturing three stripes on the shoulders.
The shirts that defined the bond
The 1990 home jersey, with its bold black-red-gold chevron sweeping across the chest, is one of the most replicated designs in soccer history. The 2014 winners' shirt and the various tournament greens sit alongside it in the memory. That back catalog is exactly why a final Adidas-era jersey carries weight — it closes a story fans have watched unfold their whole lives.
The collector's angle: why a “last” jersey matters
Here's the Shirt in a Box take. The soccer-jersey market rewards two things above all: scarcity and story. A farewell jersey has both baked in from day one. It will only ever be worn across a short window of games, it marks the definitive end of an era, and it will never be reissued as an ongoing template. Compare that with a standard home jersey a brand keeps in rotation for two seasons and you can see why the “last of the line” shirts tend to hold their appeal.
You don't need to chase every release to build a collection with real character. Sometimes the smarter move is to hold the jerseys that sit at the end of an era — the final Adidas Germany, the last shirt under an old sponsor, the closing design of a beloved template. Those are the ones people ask about later.
The Nike era begins
From 2027, Nike becomes the DFB's kit supplier, reportedly having outbid Adidas to land one of the most prestigious deals in the sport. It's a genuine shift in the soccer-jersey landscape: a German brand's most famous national partnership passing to its biggest American rival — a name U.S. fans know well. Whatever the new jerseys look like, they'll be measured against seven decades of history, a tough act to follow.
For now, though, the story is the goodbye. Germany's farewell jersey is a small, deliberate period at the end of one of soccer's great manufacturer partnerships. If you've ever wanted a slice of that history in your closet, an era ending is usually the best reminder to go looking.
Facts on the Adidas–DFB partnership and the 2027 Nike switch are drawn from multiple kit and sports-business outlets; leaked design details remain unconfirmed pending the official launch.
