Barcelona's Horizontal Stripes and the 10 Most Radical Kit Changes in Football

Barcelona are famous for their blue-and-red, vertical-striped shirts, but according to Catalan newspaper Sport (via The Guardian), things may take a different direction—quite literally. 

It is being claimed that the Blaugrana will wear horizontal stripes next season, breaking a 115-year tradition in order to increase shirt sales at a faster rate than when the Catalan giants make subtle changes to the design.

Barca's potential new look inspires this list of teams who made radical changes to their kits. 

Cardiff

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In the modern football equivalent of a Faustian pact, Malaysian businessman Vincent Tan invested millions into Cardiff City, but he drastically tinkered with the Bluebirds' famous blue shirts.

In order to "expand their appeal," the Welsh side changed their primary home shirt colour to red in 2012, much to the chagrin of the loyal fans who saw no need to change from their traditional hue. 

Cardiff fans have said they will never accept the red colour and continue to demonstrate against its use. 

Brazil

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The Brazilian Selecao is synonymous with their canary yellow-and-green livery, but they have only worn those colours in the past sixty years. Before that, the South Americans wore white with a blue trim as their first-choice kit.

After losing the 1950 World Cup Final to Uruguay at the Maracana—the most shocking moment in the nation's football history since their implosion this summer—a decision was made to exorcise the ghosts and scrap the white kits.  

A newspaper competition was held and duly won by a 19-year-old named Aldyr Garcia Schlee, who actually supported Brazil's tormentors, Uruguay. 

Leeds

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When Don Revie arrived at Leeds United in 1958, he inspired a golden generation that saw the Yorkshire side reach the pinnacle of English and European football. 

In addition to winning titles, Revie was also responsible for a drastic change in the team's colours. Before 1961, Leeds played in combinations of blue and yellow, but the legendary manager insisted in changing the strip to all-white in order to emulate the great Real Madrid side of the time. 

Southampton

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In 2012-13, Southampton dumped their famous red-and-white stripes for a predominantly red design with very thin white pinstripes.

The following season, their kit manufacturer further irritated the Saints' traditionalists by completely dumping the white stripes, opting for a more generic all-red design and abandoning a colour scheme that had stuck since 1896. 

This season, of course, the stripes have returned by popular demand—and they seem to be doing rather well wearing them.

West Brom

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Adidas have caused kit controversy from the south coast all the way to the West Midlands in recent seasons.

For the 2014-15 campaign, West Brom dumped the thick blue-and-white stripes they have worn in virtually every season since the 19th century for pinstripes. 

The new design received enough of a "hostile" reception for the club to very quickly assure fans it would switch back to the traditional look next season. 

Coventry City

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Coventry occasionally wore sky blue shirts before 1922, but the hue was abandoned for dark blue-and-white stripes, all-white kits and even a red-and-green strip in the decades that followed.

Coventry returned to sky blue—and officially became known as The Sky Blues—in 1962, when manager Jimmy Hill insisted on the colour change.

Hill's time at the club became known as the "Sky Blue Revolution," and he even wrote the club anthem, "The Sky Blue Song."

Juventus

In the first six years of their existence, Juventus wore pink shirts with black ties. Snazzy, right?

In 1903, however, the Old Lady received a donation of shirts from Notts County courtesy of John Savage, an Englishman who was playing in Turin at the time. 

Ever since, they have worn black-and-white stripes. 

Queens Park Rangers

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Did you know QPR started out playing in green-and-white horizontal hoops? The west London side wore the colour combo illustrated on this cigarette card for over 30 years before switching to its current blue-and-white hues in 1926. 

The original colours have been alluded to in some of QPR's recent away kits. 

Crystal Palace

For the majority of their existence, Crystal Palace have played in claret and blue, having received their first set of kits from Aston Villa in 1905.

However, things changed in 1973 when manager Malcolm Allison insisted on a rebranding. The home shirts were changed to Barcelona-style red-and-blue vertical stripes, the club crest was changed, and the Glaziers became known as the Eagles.

Palace have worn red and white ever since.  

MK Dons

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In 2004, a group of businessman uprooted Wimbledon FC from their London home to Milton Keynes in order to fulfil a lucrative stadium-and-property deal. 

Not only did the widely derided new team change their name to MK Dons, but they completely changed their traditional blue-and-yellow strip to an all-white affair, presumably as a way of distancing themselves from the highly controversial manner in which they came into existence. 

The real Dons—AFC Wimbledon—continue to play in the traditional blue and yellow. 

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