The return of the Nike Sportswear logo is not just a football choice

Unless you're talking about sneakers, it's not so common for Nike to focus on models taken directly from their archive, especially with regards to football shirts. The kits of recent seasons have followed a regular process of simplification and improvement, ever closer to the physicality and needs of athletes. These days the Swoosh has however revealed the Third jerseys of Tottenham Hotspur, Chelsea and Inter Milan, and it seems clear that the way goes straight to the past of Nike, in particular to the second half of the 90s. In those seasons the shirts of the Nigerian and Italian national team ('96/'98), of Borussia Dortmund ('95/'96), PSV ('95/'96), PSG, Arsenal and other big clubs sponsored by the Beaverton brand had sewn on their own shirts not the classic Swoosh but the Nike Sportswear logo, the one finished by the word "NIKE" in Futura font.

The addition of the Futura Bold Condensed Oblique typeface - with a few changes of inclination - in those years made the kits, already pushed towards the height of imagination with regards to colors and patterns, never replicated in that detail until this season.

The logo designed by the graphic design student Carolyn Davidson and paid only $ 35 by Phil Knight and Bill Bowerman, was thought from the beginning to be versatile both on running shoes and in graphic variants. The Sportswear logo was born in 1978 on the occasion of the name change from Blue Ribbon Sport Nike, a rebranding which will be followed by the last of 1995. Compared to the first of 1971, the brand becomes full and the logo in italics, no longer superimposed, is repositioned higher and in upper case. This version will be followed by a white alternative inserted inside the black box, introduced in 1985.
From then on, the logo will be used for clothing and accessory collections, appearing regularly on sneaker boxes but never on football shirts, until the second half of the 90s and the three years '95 -'98.

Some leaks and pics have already revealed that other Nike-sponsored clubs will present their Sportswear branded Third Kits in the coming days, among these AS Roma, FC Barcelona, Atletico Madrid, PSG and Galatasaray. That of Nike is indeed a choice of the market, which focuses on the consolidated relationship between football and street style, proposing jerseys that seem designed to be worn with sneakers and jeans more than with shorts and socks. The feeling of attachment to the past and the players of our childhood - for many just those of the 90s - then makes that the jerseys presented this year give a romantic touch to the new season. It's not just the Sportswear logo that evokes Nike's past but also the overall design of the shirts, with contrasting edges, prominent collars, and graphic patterns.

The confirmation that these new Thirds have a more fashion than sporting soul was given to Inter Milan, who unveiled it in preview during the F1 Grand Prix at Monza, the most media event of the last months. The Nerazzurri have not chosen a football stadium - maybe the Milan derby that will be played in two weeks - but the Ferrari paddock, making Tedua and Matilde Gioli wear two characters more connected with the world of entertainment than with that of sport. The historic sponsor Pirelli on the jersey could not find a better habitat.