Pink is the new black at the 2026 World Cup.It hasn’t taken viewers long to notice that the footwear on display in the tournament’s first few matches has been vibrant but remarkably monochromatic. Nike, Adidas, Puma, New Balance and Skechers have all supplied players with variations of bright pink cleats from special releases for the World Cup.“People say it’s coincidence but it’s happened way too many times,” said Ben Warren, founder of BW Boots UK, which specializes in finding rare and classic soccer cleats/football boots and supplies several World Cup players.“Different brands are releasing boots in more or less the same colors. We’ve seen boots looking quite similar in the last few years, but this World Cup is pretty much the exact same colour.”So how did the manufacturers land on pink? Odinga Nimako, a senior figure at Nike’s global football footwear team, told The Athletic that high demand for bolder colors led the company to go pink at the World Cup.“What we’ve been hearing consistently from the athlete and the consumer, especially when it comes to big moments, is that bright colors give them confidence, so that was really our starting point,” Nimako said.“The way we approached it was focusing on what are some of the brightest colors, what are those colors that are really amplifying that confidence, and pink is one of those colors.