Newcastle United changed shirts during the first hydration break of their pre-season friendly against Bayer Leverkusen on August 15, 2026, at St James' Park. The switch was necessary due to a color clash between the two teams' kits [1, 2].
Newcastle began the match wearing their black and white home kit with blue trim. Bayer Leverkusen started in their mint away kit featuring a blue pattern, which proved too similar in color to Newcastle’s home strip, leading to confusion on the pitch and stands [3, 1, 2].
Newcastle manager Matthias Jaissle expressed surprise at Leverkusen’s kit choice. He told reporters, "I was a bit surprised when they (Leverkusen) came out for kick-off. (The change) was done because (the shirt colour) was so close to each other so it was smart to use the first hydration break to change it. Probably from the stands, from your perspective, it was not easy to distinguish between the two teams" [1].
During the hydration pause shortly after the game began, Newcastle swapped to their lilac third strip to solve the visibility issue [3, 1, 2].
Bayer Leverkusen won the friendly 2-1, handing Newcastle a narrow defeat at home [1, 2].
