History of the partnership between the German national team and Mercedes-Benz

In the summer of the 1974 World Cup, for three and a half weeks, the German national team players traveled to the match venues across West Germany aboard an O 302, a yellow bus that remains today the quintessential symbol of the partnership between the German national team and Mercedes-Benz. The final on July 7, 1974, in Munich marked the German national team's second World Cup victory, following the 1954 win. Legend has it that during the return journey to the hotel, the German players - including Gerd Müller - drank countless beers inside the bus.

If the story of this bus, now displayed at the Mercedes-Benz Museum, is one of the symbolic moments linking the car manufacturer to the national team, many other elements also contributed to this aesthetic: from training kits to the numerous advertising campaigns involving national team players and Mercedes-Benz cars. The partnership ended in 2018 (making way for Volkswagen) with an emotional video titled The Journey: the recurring theme was always that of the journey, once again aboard a bus, this time black and quite different from the iconic 1974 World Cup model.

The Training Kits

Although Mercedes-Benz valued the aesthetics of the German national team for years, the iconic star logo of the automobile brand, designed by Gottlieb Daimler, never appeared on the team's match shirts, only on the training gear, from the days of Lothar Matthäus and Jürgen Klinsmann to those of Mesut Özil and Mario Götze. For this reason, Mercedes-Benz branded items (naturally produced by adidas) are rarer than those without the logo—honestly, also because training items generally received less attention and because in the late 1980s it was also rarer, if not unlikely, to see such items for sale. On Instagram, several users continue to post what are now real collector’s items; and you can find everything, including the 1998 green training shirt with the anti-drug patch Keine macht den Drogen.

The training kits were fundamental in this liaison between Mercedes-Benz and the German national team, the same ones worn by Mesut Özil in the latest photos depicting him in conversation with Joachim Löw, before a dispute arose between the player and the president of the German Football Association, Reinhard Grindel, which would separate their fates, with Özil parting ways with the national team after repeatedly addressing accusations of racism against him.

Commercial Videos, Campaigns, and More

After the collaboration for the 2014 World Cup, the last campaign involving Mercedes-Benz and the German national team chronologically dates back to 2018, the year the team was preparing for the World Cup in Russia. Only three months remained, but before that, there was another mission to accomplish: the participation of Emre Can, Julian Draxler & Co in the The Best Never Rest campaign, posing in front of the new Class C models. The collaboration also served as a bridge to connect two seemingly opposing worlds: football and the automotive industry. The German national team, in preparation for Euro 2012 at the training center in Tourrettes, France, invited drivers Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg, who accompanied Lukas Podolski, Marco Reus, André Schürrle, and Tim Wiese on an 18 km drive around a track in Provence.

Today, Mercedes-Benz continues its presence in football through its partnership with VfB Stuttgart (its home town) and continues to sponsor the Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team, which has reached an agreement with adidas to become the team's official team partner. Thus continues the relationship between the two companies that have most represented Germany in the world over the last century: the three stripes and three-pointed star of adidas and the Meinschaft. And now that Mercedes is leaving, it is adidas' turn to leave the German national team.

Immediately after the 2026 World Cup, the association will enter into a new partnership with Nike, heralding a new era that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. This symbolically marks the end of a long period in which Mercedes-Benz and adidas were allied with the national team, even before it was reunited in 1990 after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and which stretches across historical eras to the present day, in which globalisation is overtaking tradition.