By Les Tan

The Russian national team, which used to wear Nike, sported the three stripes in their 2-1 win over Wales in a World Cup qualifier as part of a new tie up with sportswear company adidas. While teams battle for national and personal glory on the pitch in their attempts to scale the Everest of football, the World Cup, the sports marketing battle off the pitch in football boardrooms between sportswear giants Nike and adidas sees the latter winning this round of Russian roulette.

Nike first burst into the imagination of footballers worldwide when they secured the rights to dress the Brazilian national team for £100 million over 10 years in 1996 and since then, they have dressed more prominent national squads around the world like Holland and Portugal. Nike even went after Germany, the icon of adidas, but were finally rebuffed for nationalistic reasons.

In the 2006 World Cup in Germany, adidas kitted out six teams while Nike had eight teams wearing its logo. However, no team wearing Nike made the final and it was Puma that had the final hurrah when the team they kitted out, Italy, beat an adidas-wearing France to lift the World Cup.

Russia made a positive impression at Euro 2008 earlier this year with a young team that made it to the semi-finals before losing 0-3 to eventual winners Spain.

Politically, Russia have recently reasserted their geopolitical presence and now seem to long for the nostalgic days of the old Soviet Union when their Sports Minister and Russian Football Union president Vitaliy Mutko said:

“We have warmest memories of the Soviet National teams successfully performing at various international sports event in the three-striped apparel. Now we've signed a completely new long-term partnership with adidas that allows us not only to equip our national team, to take our youth and children's football to a new level, but to popularize this number one sport as a Russian national idea for the entire society.”