Has a Nike font appeared on Lens’ adidas shirts? 2004/05 season vibe

adidas’ Three Stripes on the front, a reference to the Nike era on the back. During yesterday’s Champions League match against Sporting CP, the Lens shirts attracted attention for a detail that brings together two generations of kit suppliers. The typeface used for the names and numbers recalled the Nike font of the early 2000s, which appeared on the kits of several clubs and national teams starting with the World Cup in South Korea and Japan. The detail was first highlighted on X by Victor Lefaucheux and later picked up by Footy Headlines, drawing attention to the curious combination of a Three Stripes shirt and a typeface associated with the Swoosh.

At first glance, it seems an unusual choice for a team that returned to adidas this season under a new five-year agreement. Announced last June, the deal ended the PUMA era that began in 2021 and launched the third partnership between Lens and the German brand. The first lasted almost twenty years, from 1975 to 1994, and included the club’s European debut; the second, from 2011 to 2014, ended with the team’s return to Ligue 1. It is a relationship that has spanned different periods in the club’s history, interspersed with partnerships with other brands, including Nike.

For some users - including Victor Lefaucheux himself - the typeface seen last night recalled the first Nike shirts worn by Juventus, starting with the 2003/04 season. The Inter and Porto kits from the same period could also be mentioned. That font, however, belonged to a shared visual language used by several clubs associated with the Swoosh, Lens above all, as the French side had already worn it in 2002. At the time, Nike was at the beginning of its partnership with the club, which it would outfit until the 2008/09 season.

And so, an aesthetic reminiscent of Nike has resurfaced on the back of Lens’ 2026/27 adidas shirts, while also belonging to the French club’s own archive. Lens had already taken a similar approach in 2023, when it returned to UEFA’s top club competition and PUMA created a gold shirt that explicitly paid tribute to the Nike-designed European kit from 2002/03. While the connection was chromatic on that occasion, today it comes through the typography.