In 1999, Kappa took over from Nike as the producer of the Italy national team kit.
The company’s first offerings were nice and traditional but, while the set designed for the European Championship in 2000 was ostensibly traditional in terms of avoiding extraneous detail, it was quite ground-breaking.
Looking back now, the Kombat 2000 range doesn’t look that skin-tight but, back then, it was quite the departure. Another notable change was that, for the first time, the FIGC allowed a maker’s logo on the kit – though the Kappa Omni symbol was limited to the sleeves of the shirt.
Italy were drawn with co-hosts Belgium, Sweden and Turkey, winning all of their games to top the group. In those three matches, the quarter-final win over Romania and the semi-final penalty shootout victory against the other host nation, the Netherlands, Dino Zoff’s side were able to wear their traditional blue-white-blue look.
That set up a meeting in the final with France, who were looking to emulate the West Germany teams of 1972 and 1974 in holding the World Cup and European Championship at the same time. In the World Cup quarter-final two years previously, Italy had worn all-blue against the all-white of France as the hosts progressed on penalties; this time, France won the toss and a similar shorts-swap approach was taken.
The French took to the field in Rotterdam in a blue-blue-red look – quite common for them now but not seen before 1994 – while Italy used the white home shorts with the shirts and socks from the change strip.
Marco Delvecchio’s goal put Italy ahead early in the second half and they were close to victory but Sylvain Wiltord scored a late equaliser for France, sending the game to extra time. In the additional period, David Trezeguet scored the golden-goal winner, denying the Kappa kits success.
The primary goalkeeper shirt was the traditional grey – unfortunately, Francesco Toldo didn’t channel his manager or Walter Zenga by wearing the blue home socks, he did wear the white away set against Turkey.
*
There was also a green shirt, worn against Belgium.
Toldo was not intended to be the first-choice goalkeeper but Gianluigi Buffon was injured in a warm-up game against Norway. As this happened after the squad was submitted, Toldo kept number 12 and the number 1 shirt went to Buffon’s replacement, Christian Abbiati – somewhat ironically, as he never wore 1 at club level.
The Italy squad in full:
*withdrew through injury
As well as being the first major tournament where Italy had a manufacturer’s logo on their kit, it was also the first where more ‘conventional’ squad numbering was used rather than the previous method where players were arranged in positional blocks.
It meant that Demetrio Albertini was able to wear his favoured number 4 after having 11, 10 and 9 respectively at the previous three finals.
There were remnants of the old way in how the higher-numbered players were more or less grouped by position and the three players furthest forward in the starting lineup for the final – Stefano Fiore, Francesco Totti and goalscorer Delvecchio – had a familiar Italian look to them.
