Seven nations are wearing different shirts during World Cup as new FIFA rule explained

If you've been watching the World Cup especially closely so far, you might have noticed that every nation's shirt sleeves are slightly different in each match.

The first three days of the tournament have been scheduled in such a way to allow co-hosts Mexico, Canada and United States to kick off the action.

Mexico got the World Cup underway with a 2-0 win over nine-man South Africa in Group A, while Canada dominated against Bosnia and Herzegovina in Group B but had to come from behind to draw 1-1.

USA, meanwhile, produced perhaps the performance of the group stages so far to thrash Paraguay 4-1 in Group D.

On Saturday, it was the turn of five-time champions Brazil, who drew 1-1 with Morocco in what was a rather off-colour performance from Carlo Ancelotti's side.

During the match, eagle-eyed viewers spotted that the right sleeve on each of the Brazil players' shirts featured a golden World Cup patch, with Morocco players wearing a white patch.

The reason behind the difference is because Brazil are five-time World Cup winners, meaning they are one of seven nations - Argentina, England, France, Germany, Spain and Uruguay being the others - that get to adorn the golden patch during the World Cup.

But that is actually part of a new, wider FIFA initiative to cover the entire World Cup - with each of the 48 nations, regardless of how long they stay in the tournament, set to wear two slightly different patches on their kits.

FIFA's 'dynamic' patch rule explained

The new FIFA rule mandates that the majority of nations will wear a different coloured patch depending on whether they are the administrative home team or the away team for a certain fixture.

Every nation has at least one match as the home or away team during the group stages, meaning the rule applies to all 48 teams competing at this summer's tournament - though Ghana and Jordan will wear the same patch in all three fixtures.

For the non-World Cup winners, they will wear a black patch with the World Cup '26' logo filled in white, or a white patch with the '26' filled in black.

It differs for each country, and depends largely on what colour kits they are wearing during the World Cup.

For instance, co-hosts Mexico will wear the black patch while 'away' from home, while fellow co-hosts USA will wear it when they are at home.

Raul Jimenez (with right sleeve patch visible) celebrates scoring for Mexico against South Africa (Image: Getty)

That's as per Footy Headlines, who have published a guide to how exactly the patch rule works.

For England, they will wear a gold patch with a white fill during their 'home' matches against Croatia and Ghana, before a white patch with gold fill is added to their kit for their 'away' fixture in Group L against Panama.

As for Brazil, they will stick with the gold patch against Haiti in their next fixture, before wearing the white patch against Scotland.

On the left sleeve, meanwhile, each nation will wear the same patch relating to a FIFA charitable cause, which 'dynamically' updates to a different patch at every stage of the tournament.