Like most teams nowadays, Udinese have three shirts.
Well, technically it’s five if they had enough goalkeeper tops to hand to outfit a full team (something suggested four years ago by our friend Jay from Design Football and done by River Plate recently to honour Chapecoense), but the three main ones should be enough to solve any clash that arises.
At the weekend, le zebrette were away to Atalanta, who wear black and blue stripes. One would have thought that the attractive white kit would be the best choice – especially as teams need little or no excuse to change nowadays. However, Udinese proposed wearing their home shirts – which bear quite the resemblance to Newcastle’s from last season – with the white shorts and socks from the change strip to aid differentiation to Atalanta.
The league approved this, but referee Fabio Maresca wasn’t happy, feeling that the dark backs of the two shirts clashed. With Udinese seemingly having only travelled with their home shirts, a make-do-and-mend solution was arrived at:
@museumofjerseys pic.twitter.com/K2GjrnOhh3
— Ernest Everhard (@ErnestEverhard_) December 11, 2016
Basically, apart from the part housing the number, all of the black on the backs of the shirts was covered over.
The alteration didn’t affect Udinese, who won the game 3-1.
We just wish that Signor Maresca had taken charge of the Milan derby recently and ask them not to wear clashing shirts.
Ugh, that Milan derby shows how wrong-headed Nike’s designs are. There is no way, even if you give a free pass to the bodies of the shirts (which we shouldn’t), that those sleeves can be distinguished.