A curious incident brought to our attention by the estimable Les Motherby – check out his labour of love, Hull City Kits, and the podcast on which we collaborate (new episode coming soon!).
With Italy one of the countries worst-affected by the first wave of Covid-19 in the spring, football was suspended for more than three months, with the season resuming in late June.
For Sampdoria, their first fixture after the restart was away to Internazionale and of course they wore their white change shirt, with blue shorts and socks. More so than most clubs, Sampdoria’s goalkeepers make use of the club’s outfield strips and, for the game at San Siro, Emil Audero took to the field wearing the third kit – not the best choice against Inter’s blue and black.
A change was needed and, after the minute’s silence for those who had lost their lives during the pandemic, Audero donned the official green goalkeeper shirt, though without enough time to change shorts, socks or baselayer.
At half-time in what proved to be a 2-1 defeat, he did change fully into green. Incidentally, for this game Samp had the logo of sponsors San Bernardo rather than Invent as well as ‘Samp For People’ sleeve patches.
An oddity but, as we said at the outset, not unique: at Euro 96, Germany’s Andreas Köpke had a late change prior to the semi-final against England while Kitted Off has a piece on Manchester City goalkeeper Costel Pantilimon’s three kit combinations in the 2012 Community Shield.
