- Thanks to Pete Doyle of AS Roma Matchworn and Ed Moynihan of Forza27 for their assistance
- You might quibble with the use of ‘red’ and ‘yellow’ for Roma’s colours, but they are terms used by the club itself
This Thursday night, March 12, will see a new addition to the Roma kit canon as they wear their home shirts with their away shorts and socks in the first leg of their Europa League clash with Sevilla.
The Spanish side wear white shirts, white shorts and black socks at home, forcing Roma to change shorts but, while they were able to wear all-red in a friendly against Sevilla in 2017, Uefa have sought greater sock-distinction. With Roma’s third kit being all-navy, the only option is to wear red-red-white for what appears to be the first time [edit: first time for the men’s team, anyway].
It’s not the first occasion that a European clash has dictated the use of a mashup for Roma over the years, with three standing out in our minds since the turn of the millennium.
Having switched to Kappa for 2000-01, Roma encountered Hamburg in the Uefa Cup. The German club favour white shirts with red shorts and blue socks at home and Roma are just one of a few teams to have to come up with alternative combinations when visiting the Volksparkstadion.
On this occasion, the alternative home socks joined the navy third shirts and shorts for a 3-0 second-leg win as they advanced to the fourth round. However, there they would exit the competition, losing 2-1 to Liverpool, who would themselves be forced into wearing a mashup in Rome.
Roma would win Serie A in 2000-01 and for the following season’s Champions League campaign they introduced a special halved shirt, worn with navy shorts and socks. That wouldn’t need to be altered for any games, but, having finished second in 2001-02, they again went with a special European strip for the following season.
This featured yellow sleeves and black shorts and socks but an encounter with Valencia in the second group stage forced a change of shorts. The white set, used for the domestic home and away kits, was called upon but in addition they opted to wear red socks – presumably to give the kit better balance.
Having lost their first three group games, including a 1-0 reversal to Valencia in the previous match, a 3-0 win at the Mestalla revived hopes of reaching the quarter-finals, but draws with Arsenal and Ajax in their final two games meant that Roma finished bottom of their group.
You might look at the final mashup and think that we’ve made an error, but it is included for bizarro value.
By 2016, Roma were with Nike, who were of course giving everybody their Vapor template and for i giallorossi that meant yellow socks with the two-tone red shirts and darker shorts.
As luck would have it, when Roma progressed from their Europa League group, they were drawn with Villarreal. That meant a more conventional look for the 4-0 first-leg win in Spain, while the 1-0 loss in Italy saw the Spanish side wearing black socks.
