Mo Salah and the Egyptian football team's sneaker and suit look: yay or nay?

The Pharaohs landed in Russia yesterday, and what were people talking about? Their sneaker-suit combo. They got flak for it, but it's actually very high fashion...

Mohammed Salah went for a double breasted look. AFP

Egyptian national team football player Ahmed Fathi arrives at Grozny International Airport rocking a leather backpack with two-tone sneakers and a formal suit. Confident. AFP

Instead of 'skins versus shirts' we've got 'sneaks versus shoes' . AFP

But Egyptian player Mohamed Elneny was an outlier, opting for a more traditional footwear combo. AFP

The line up of sneakers. AFP

And Salah went for an LV backpack - a classic. AFP

Twitter is running wild with comments deriding the Egyptian football team before they have even kicked a ball in the World Cup. The crime? The Pharaohs, as the team is affectionately called, wore white trainers (Adidas) with formal suits as they arrived at Grozny International Airport ahead of the start of the tournament on Thursday. A confident choice.

Their dark blue, double-breasted suits were worn with a white shirt, a black tie and white trainers, and the look was apparently enough to tip Twitter into meltdown.

But I have news for these social media haters: sartorially speaking, dressing a suit with casual footwear is exactly the look for men these days, and one that has been splashed across runways from Dior Homme to Dolce & Gabbana over the past few seasons.

However, that being said, the guys didn’t quite get it right.

Although ill-fitting seems to be a thing at the moment (Meghan Markle’s wedding dress for example) a suit has got to fit the person wearing it, otherwise it defeats the whole purpose of donning one in the first place. The aim is to look sharp, in control and confident. Unfortunately for the players, their matching suits didn’t give off that air – instead the too-long arms, and weird breaks on the shoes meant it just felt crumpled and thrown together.

The suits appear to be by a brand called Lo Fashion:

These players are elite athletes at the very top of their profession, and – in terms of fashion – are the perfect shape to carry a suit. So quite how no one remembered to actually tailor the thing is a mystery.

Knocking back the severity of a double-breasted suit with unexpected footwear is definitely on point -  Gucci has added everything from loafers to flip-flops to its looks, while Dior Homme didn’t even bother tying its shoelaces up for autumn/winter 2018 – however there is one crucial thing Egypt got wrong.

For this look to work, trainers must be gleaming box-fresh white. Not scuffed. Not dirty. And definitely not second hand.  As every sneaker head will explain; shape matters, so to see a rag tag collection of tired looking footwear that looked like Dunlop Green Flash really didn’t hit the mark.

As the saying goes, however, it's only fashion, and how good the Pharaohs do (or do not) look in a suit doesn’t really matter. It’s how they perform on the pitch that has got us all on tenterhooks.

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Read more:

Luxury trainers: Chloé's Sonnie sneakers available in the UAE from this month

John McAuley: Mohamed Salah and teammates have a chance ‘to make all of Egypt happy’ at World Cup 2018

Mohamed Salah appears at Egypt's final World Cup training session in Cairo

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