Adidas is making its road to Euro 2024 with special-edition sneakers and along the way remembering one of the most disappointing moments for all of England. The brand is releasing versions of its City Series shoes that have tie-ins to previous Euro hosts, and there’s a version floating around referencing the 1996 tournament on the Adidas London.
England hosted the 1996 Euro tournament, and it was a big deal at the time. It had been 30 years since the country had hosted a major football tournament. The last one before that was the 1966 World Cup that England won, beating West Germany. But the decades that followed would see English fans become the disgrace of the global football community, leaving a path of carnage that followed their football supporters wherever they went, whether it be for club or country.
So to host Euro 96, England had to ensure that the violence had gone away and that the country would have everything under control. And they convinced UEFA of just that. And for most of the tournament, there were very few outbursts of disorderliness.
England and Germany both advanced to the semifinals, where they met in a match for the ages. It went to penalties, where English player Gareth Southgate, now the manager of the country’s national team, missed a penalty and Germany ended up winning.
After the match, a riot erupted in London’s Trafalgar Square, where all hell broke loose as upwards of 2,000 football hooligans threw bottles at each other and police, broke shop windows, and flipped over cars. It was a moment of embarrassment for England on and off the pitch.
The upcoming pair referencing the ‘96 tournament is a black suede pair of Adidas London, a shoe that first released in the 1970s and has become a cult classic amongst football casuals over the years.
The shoes flip the London’s original red and black colorway and add “96” to the lettering on the upper. Sure, Adidas isn’t directly calling out England’s failure at Euro ’96, but it’s still a curious choice in terms of tournaments to memorialize on a shoe. Perhaps it’s a remembrance of darker times. Maybe it’s a jab from German Adidas as a reminder to England, as the Euros will be hosted in Germany this year. The shoe’s were leaked by the account Adi Family on X.
There’s no release info yet, but we can imagine they’ll come out shortly, as the tournament starts on June 14.
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