The 2020/21 Champions League is really starting to hot up.

As the New Year approaches, the group stages of Europe's premier competition are starting to take shape and we're now only two rounds of games away from seeing which 16 clubs will qualify.

Bayern Munich, Chelsea, Sevilla, Manchester City, Juventus and Barcelona are the select few teams who have already booked their places in the Round of 16, but there are still positions to play for.

2020/21 Champions League

We're still waiting to see whether Liverpool can bounce back from defeat to Atalanta, Real Madrid can rise from the ashes in Group G and Manchester United can hold off Paris Saint-Germain.

However, one thing we can guarantee are the brilliant jerseys that have been on show in the Champions League this season with 2020/21 arguably proving a high watermark for kit designs.

I mean, seriously, no matter whether you prefer your Adidas strips to Nike ones or Hummel releases to Puma efforts, there have been some truly original, unique and frankly fashionable kits this year.

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This season's away kits

Here at GIVEMESPORT, we love the arbitrary of task of ranking something as innately subjective as that and we've allowed the dust to settle on our ranking of every Champions League home strip.

However, let's face it, there's very little that sports manufacturers can do with home designs without raising a middle finger to tradition and besides, the world of away jerseys is far more entertaining.

In other words, welcome to the fun part of kit rankings where some of the most outrageously ugly and jaw-droppingly gorgeous designs sit next to each other on the clothing rail.

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Ranking Champions League away kits

So, let's separate the good from the bad and the bad from the ugly by checking out our ranking of the 32 away kits on display in the Champions League for the 2020/21 campaign:

32. Lazio

Woahhhhhhhhh. Whoever thought that blinding shade of green was a good idea seriously needs an eye test because it couldn't be more of a colour clash with the classic Lazio blue if it tried. Yuck.

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31. RB Leipzig

Speaking of horrendous colour clashes, it doesn't take a fashion student to know that purple and orange is a dreadful combination and sucking the life out of the logos with a pedestrian yellow shade hardly helps.

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30. Borussia Dortmund

Can we go back to the days when Dortmund kits were always class? This boring white template is messily splattered with random squares and by god is the horrid pink sponsor an absolute eyesore.

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29. Inter Milan

Nike might have nailed the Inter home and third kits this season, but this graph-paper disaster is a poor attempt at an away jersey with the blue and black arrangements darting all over the shop.

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28. Ferencváros

I'm not sure an away kit has ever looked so similar to the corresponding home kit - what's happened here? And sadly for Ferencvaros, we're not a fan of this Celtic-esque design with its corset-like hoops.

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27. Shakhtar Donetsk

What on earth is this colour!? This bland shade of grey-brown looks like your grandma's curtains, but even if the kit was attractive, my sworn enemy - the cartoonish 'Parimatch' logo - would still sideswipe it.

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26. Krasnodar

Truth be told, I quite like the texturing, but Krasnodar's eye-watering green for the logos really punctures the cleanliness of the white and I still reckon the logo looks like something you'd find in your iPhone settings.

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25. Dynamo Kyiv

I was such a big fan of Dynamo's home kit that it gives me no pleasure at all ranking their away strip so low, but I was given no choice considering it looks like children's pyjamas or a Primark t-shirt.

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24. Bayern Munich

It's a crying shame that the Champions League holders are sporting such a bland away kit for their title defence with a boring white canvas hardly being resuscitated by missable tangerine lettering.

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23. Chelsea

Clearly Chelsea stumbled into the same pyjama shop as Dynamo when they were designing their away strip because the metal-like etchings on this otherwise decent mix of blue shades just look so naff. 

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22. İstanbul Başakşehir

If it wasn't for the Call of Duty-like badge that gets on my nerves every single time, sorry Başakşehir fans, this fairly smart navy design with orange and white trimmings would rank much, much higher.

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21. Lokomotiv Moscow

We're firmly in middle-of-the-road territory now because although there's not a lot to hate about this Adidas effort - it's about the best you can do with the Lokomotiv palette - there's not a lot to love about it either.

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20. Manchester United

This all comes down to the colour scheme because an otherwise solid strip has been jettisoned into the middle tiers because of a bizarre brown that makes it so forgettable and waters down the badge.

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19. Sevilla

I'm not going to sit here and pretend there's anything egregious about this Sevilla design because there isn't, but I don't have it within me to rank it any higher when it deserves 0/10 for originality.

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18. Paris Saint-Germain

The central stripe on a luscious white background gets a thumbs up from me; there's just something about the collar that looks so cheap and the wordy sponsor really detracts from the neatness of the template.

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17. FC Porto

A white canvas works best when it enlivens the colour you paint upon it and this really brings out the best in Porto's vintage blue livery. It's just a shame that the random rectangles are such a lazy use of texturing.

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16. Olympiacos

It's like the Wolves away kit, but miles better. The blue shouldering on this classic Adidas template looks brilliant and the darker-blue scrubbings blend well with the various logos, we're just not a massive fan of the orange three-stripes.

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15. Rennes

This wild radio-wave texturing really pales in comparison to Rennes' eye-popping home strip, but the simplicity of the colour scheme and template wins me over enough to ignore the gargantuan sponsor.

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14. Red Bull Salzburg

Not my favourite use of a collar this season, but for whatever reason, this combination of metallic grey - gorgeously belted up with texturing - fits hand in glove with the unabashedly-red trimmings.

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13. Borussia Mönchengladbach

Spoiler alert: black kits are the key to my heart. As a result, it should come as no surprise that this monochrome joy ranks highly for me, even if the sponsor is a little brazen and the cube texturing leaves me cold.

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12. Zenit St. Petersburg

Having ranked rock bottom for home shirts, Zenit have redeemed themselves with a far cleaner attempt at the collar design with a white background sharpening the club's iconic light blue shades.

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11. Liverpool

By far and away the kit that divides me most. One minute I think this aqua camo explosion is a bonafide train wreck, the next I think it's one of the most stunning strips out there, so a middle ground of 11th feels right.

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10. Club Brugge

Brugge always have some of the Champions League's most underrated kits and such a seamless transfer of the white, blue and black triumvirate of their badge into this alternate stunner gets the seal of approval from me.

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9. Real Madrid

Pink kits are only ever two things: horrendous or gorgeous. Thankfully for the Adidas team, they struck the latter this season because this hushed shade of pink really pops with the navy trimmings.

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8. Atletico Madrid

There's something about the subtle blue shaking hands with the striking red that is so wrong, but so right and the vibrating-wave-like design of the collar is downright beautiful. Just a shame about the unwieldy sponsor.

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7. Midtjylland

This is wild... in all the best ways. Red, black and white is always a winner, never mind when it's enlivened with a beautiful, swirling texture and a wholly-original flag-waving midriff that effortlessly masks the sponsor.

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6. Ajax

This crisp and clean cocktail of black and gold is the umpteenth reminder that Ajax kits are always stunning and our only criticism is that their Eredivise iteration is slightly better than its Champions League cousin.

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5. Marseille 

One of the most unique design decisions on the market and it works like magic. The little nighttime houses make this jersey look like a work of art and the luscious sky blue trimmings tidy it up into a smart final product.

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4. Manchester City

Puma really pushed the boat out with their 2020/21 City designs and while two were surefire disasters, they hit a home run with the away strip, striking the perfect balance between uniqueness and pure class.

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3. Atalanta

Wow, wow, wow. A first-class example of how one design decision can bring a kit to life because the black, blue and gold patterning on the shoulders are game-changing here - and we adore the variant club badge. 

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2. Juventus

Oh mama. The vintage Adidas template with a navy and white combination would have been worthy of a top-five place alone, but it skyrockets even higher with the amazingly-unique design around the sleeves.

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1. Barcelona

Black and gold, black and gold, black and gold.

Aside from being a colour combination to die for at the best of times, there's just something so royal about it being used for a Barcelona jersey with the collar and sleeve proving beautiful to boot.

And with the club badge, sponsor and logo singing from the same colour hymn sheet, we have one of the smartest-looking and downright-strapping kits in the Champions League and football as a whole.

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GIVEMESPORT's Kobe Tong says

Don't get me wrong, there have been some impressive home kits this season, but there's nothing better than a belting away strip and this might be the most stacked list I've ever had to rank.

From the moment we reach Real's bold, but brilliant pink alternate strip, we're talking about world-class designs and that barely sneaks its way into the top ten.

However, I'll happily admit that my soft spot lies with black or navy jerseys and it's so good to see Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo sporting what are, in my opinion, the finest kits on the market.

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Yes, I know, Barcelona have 'stolen' the design of Kaizer Chiefs' 50th-anniversary kit, but that doesn't make it any less beautiful and I'd happily rank the South African's above them if they were in the Champions League.

But credit to the Blaugrana because they've now topped both my home and away rankings in the Champions League as well as having taken the away crown for the 2019/20 season to boot.

And no, I'm not a hardcore Messi worshipper typing away from Catalonia, it just happens that, for all their actual failings in the Champions League, they're pretty hard to beat when it comes to their attire.

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