The Azzurri collection, summer 2014

The World Cup and football shirts go hand-in-hand like summer-kissed lovers drunk on the heady elixir of possibility. You can tell a discerning football fan by the colour of their top, and for a goodly while now the thinking fan's shirt has been Azzurri.

So it's with some excitement that the football world welcomes this summer's latest incarnation of Italy's home top, modelled here by none other than FourFourTwo's last cover star, the winningly wonderful Mario Balotelli.

In case they play somebody else in blue – hey, it might happen – here's the away kit.

And one more of the shirts, Balo-less but still somehow bearing the man's mighty impression.