Italy’s top flight football competition, Serie A, kicks into gear this weekend, with four matches taking place on Saturday, Aug. 21, and six more on Sunday, Aug. 22. This year’s edition features a couple of newly promoted teams who haven’t played in Serie A in 20 years or more. There was also drama off the pitch, particularly with Napoli, who didn’t unveil their 2021-22 kits until the eve of the season. Let’s take a closer look at what clubs throughout Italy will be wearing this season…
(Includes kits unveiled as of Friday, Aug. 20)
Atalanta’s third kit is solid coral, with an embossed graphic of the Renaissance Stand of the club’s home, Gewiss Stadium, on the lower left corner. The name of Atalanta’s home city, Bergamo, is also embossed on the left sleeve.
Bologna’s home kit gives a nod to the architecture of the city of Bologna with a tonal brickwork pattern all over. The away kit has “BOLOGNA FC 1909” embossed on the front of the shirt in the silhouette of the Two Towers, one of the most famous landmarks in Bologna.
The hexagonal halftone pattern on the blue half of Cagliari’s home kit is also found on the sleeves of the club’s sky blue third kit.
All three of Empoli’s kits features a graphic of a lion on the front, though it is most visible in promotional photos on the away kit.
The crest on Fiorentina’s 2021-22 kits is one the club wore in from 1981 to 1991 — sometimes at a ridiculously large size. There is also a fourth kit that follows the same template, with a red base and white chest stripe.
The coat of arms of the City of Genoa takes the place of the club crest on the 2021-22 third kit for Genoa CFC. The kit is mainly light grey, with a darker grey stripe running down the left side of the kit, under the badge, that is styled to look like the Lanterna di Genova, one of the city’s most famous landmarks.
All three of Hellas Verona’s 2021-22 kits commemorate the 700th anniversary of the death of famous Italian poet Dante Aligheri, who penned The Divine Comedy. The pattern on the body of the home kit and the sleeves of the third kit is is inspired by the wrought iron grilles of the Arche Scaligere in Verona, the funerary monuments of the della Scala family, which ruled the city from 1308 to 1387. Dante fled to Verona after being exiled from Florence and was granted protection by Cangrande I della Scala.
Inter Milan are breaking with tradition on their 2021-22 home kit, with a snakeskin pattern in tones of blue; usually, they stick with blue and black vertical stripes. The pattern, plus the snake on the away kit, are nods to the biscione, a historical symbol of the city of Milan.
Juventus are celebrating 10 years of playing at the Allianz Stadium in Turin with their 2021-22 home jersey. Integrated into the black stripes are pentagons with stars inside, which mimic the design of Juve’s Walk of Fame outside the Allianz Stadium.
Lazio raised the ire of supporters when social media posts suggested their 2021-22 home kit would be green instead of their traditional sky blue. However, it turned out the club was simply touting the fact manufacturer Macron used material made from recycled plastic. The retro crest on the third kit is one that the club used in the 1970s.
AC Milan’s away kit is a light shade of gold and contains a tonal pattern inspired by the maps of six cities around the world: Kolkata, India; Melbourne, Australia; Nairobi, Kenya; New York City; Rio de Janeiro; and, of course, Milan. AC Milan is also the only Serie A club to get a third kit with Puma’s new template with the club name spelled out across the chest.
Napoli’s kits have been a source of drama over the summer. The club ended its deal with manufacturer Kappa and signed on with Emporio Armani — the first time the famed design house has manufactured football kits — but they weren’t unveiled until Aug. 19, two days before the Serie A season began. Napoli played preseason matches in their old Kappa kits, but with patches covering the logos of sponsors whose deals with the club had expired.
AS Roma’s away kits are predominantly white, with stripes in the club colours of dark red, orange and yellow on each sleeve cuff. The design harkens back to one worn by the club in the 1970s.
Salernitana are back in Serie A for the first time since 1998-99, and have plenty of options for kits. Aside from the three above, a fourth kit has white and light blue stripes down the front, harkening back to what the club wore when it was first founded in 1919.
Sampdoria’s away kit takes the stripes that traditionally appear across the middle of the club’s home kit and turns them into a partial sash. The Shield of St. George appears on both the home and away kits, and is derived from the coat of arms of the City of Genoa.
Sassuolo debuted their third kit for 2021-22 in their last match of the 2020-21 campaign against Lazio in May. The home kit features broad green stripes and narrower black stripes; in between are alternating green and black angled lines.
All three of Spezia’s kits follow the same template, with a black polo collar, black trim on the sleeve cuffs and hem, and two vertical stripes running down the left side of the shirt, under the club’s monogram. All three also feature tonal vertical stripes, with miniature versions of the monogram inside the stripes. The badge on the right chest commemorates Spezia’s Italian league championship in 1944, which was not officially recognized until 2002 since the league operated with a reduced number of teams and a different format that year due to World War II.
The fabric of Torino’s home contains a custom jacquard pattern depicting the bull from the club crest. The away kit is a tribute to Club Atlético River Plate of Argentina, who wear a similar sash on their home kits. River Plate and Torino played a friendly match on May 26, 1949, to raise money for the families of Torino players killed in the Superga air disaster earlier that month.
Udinese’s home kit keeps their traditional home look of black and white stripes for 2021-22, but adds light grey pinstripes over top. The back of the jersey has a solid black box for a white number, with enough white space between it and the collar for a player name set in black. The front and back of the away kit feature a diamond halftone pattern that fades from navy blue to turquoise.
Venezia’s kits for their season back in Serie A since 2002 were designed in conjunction with New York-based agency Fly Nowhere. The black home kit has a faux Venetian wall texture all over, and the gold stars arranged in a V below the wordmark are inspired by the Basilica di San Marco in Venice. The kits have a “VENEZIA” wordmark across the chest in place of a shirt sponsor — something the club has done since at least 2016-17, when they played in Serie C.
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