The evolution of the goalkeeper jerseys

When one thinks of the football shirt itself, one hardly thinks of the jacket worn by the goalkeeper. It is different from all the others, and makes the goalkeeper the only player on the field who can wear a different uniform in colors and designs from those of his teammates. Furthermore, also and not only for this reason, the goalkeepers' shirts never stand out among the best-selling of the teams, because clearly it is difficult for the fan to prefer their extreme defender to a moving player who perhaps scores and assists. All this contributes to making the goalkeeper's uniform mistreated and irrelevant compared to that of his teammates who play in different roles from his.

Yet the brands do everything to make the goalkeepers' shirts attractive, having returned to offer them in colors and designs that immediately make you think back to the 90s, the golden age of those shirts. Let me explain: there will never be a second 90s, this is because the taste of the fan has evolved and would hardly accept the uniforms that were produced then, with those colors so blinding and those designs that became famous over time. This, however, does not limit the various suppliers from still designing characteristic goalkeeper kits, with discreetly striking patterns and colors by force of uncommon things - on the other hand, the goalkeeper must distinguish himself from teammates by regulation.

Despite this, there was an intermediate period in which the goalkeepers' shirts were also forgotten by the manufacturers, who between the second half of the early 2000s and the first of the 2010s dressed the extreme defenders around the world with anonymous shirts, devoid of personality and often dull colors, giving themselves a hoe on their feet and ending up sinking the value and the possibility of selling goalkeeper shirts. An example can be the template for the Nike goalkeeper shirts of the 2008/2009 season: a standard color for the whole uniform (shorts and socks included) and then a black or white line that connected the collar to the shoulder.

That was a moment of transition for the brands, which had entered the new millennium with the oversized cuts of the uniforms of the previous decade, bringing with them all the epic designs of the time. Clearly, the technology also advanced in terms of soccer jerseys and it was foreseeable that sooner or later those uniforms so large would have to shrink to favor the athletic side of the shirt. This brought the brands into confusion and the result was certainly not unforgettable divided with more sober and undecided designs, a more slim fit and few stimuli to buy a shirt only for its aesthetic beauty. As mentioned, the goalkeeper kits paid the most.

The situation began to improve with the beginning of the new decade, the one just passed. An example may be the Nike jerseys for goalkeepers adopted in the 2010/2011 season or those of adidas used in the 2010 World Cup. The brands began to think again about the goalkeeper jersey, giving them a minimum of importance, although they were still very far from the concepts twenty years earlier or ... Five, ten years later!

In fact, starting from 2015 the brands returned to see how the goalkeepers' uniforms of the white palettes, taking advantage of their diversity from the rest of the jerseys on the field to experiment with designs and colors. If the goalkeepers' shirts had to have special colors to be clearly distinguishable, the brands colored them orange, fluorescent green and bright red. If the peculiar designs could help to increase the sales of the aforementioned shirts to a minimum, the manufacturers invented geometric patterns and exuberant and imaginative patterns that they could never insert on home or away jersey but at most on third kits for the rest of the team, making the number one uniforms super exclusive. So the goalkeepers' shirts are back to counting something.

If we add the development of the goalkeeper role in the last three years, with the increase in the tasks required of the aforementioned and his constant approach to the movement players due to relevance on the field, use of the feet and increase in prices in the transfer market, we can understand the other reasons why brands are investing again in goalkeeper uniforms. At the moment, the templates designed by the major manufacturers are among the most imaginative and colorful seen in recent years. Of course, Nike and adidas are always on the piece, ready to fight: the US brand for this year has thought of two patterns for its own templates, one geometric and the other "artistic" with clear references to the uniforms of the 90s , while adidas designed a zebra motif that caused quite a stir at the beginning of the season precisely because of its extravagant pattern. In this way, not only would ter Stegen's uniform be bought because of the player's great talent, but also because the shirts he wears are all wonderful.

In the end, thinking about it, the goalkeepers of the 90s are not only remembered for their absurd uniforms, but also because they wore them when they made their stroke of genius, such as the scorpion of René Higuita or the goals of the only goalkeeper- striker that football history remembers, Jorge Campos  At the same time, goalkeepers such as Alisson  Ederson or Neuer in twenty years we will still remember them not only for the shirts worn, but also because they were among the first to bring back the role of the so-called free-keeper, who goes up with the the ball to midfield or dribbles the attackers who press it before getting rid of the ball and sometimes even making assists.

The football shirt has undoubtedly always been a cult object. Often they are at the center of special collections, and in some cases they are so limited that they are also sold on resell sites such as Classic Football Shirts or even Grailed, which occasionally lends its pages to lovers of the beautiful game for their shopping. in the secondary market. In recent years, football jersey has also come to invade the catwalks - as in the case of Balenciaga at the last Paris Fashion Week - and in 2020 we can safely say that when we talk about fashion football we think almost exclusively of football shirts. In a world where every shirt has its potential, it is right to return to giving importance to goalkeeper shirts, too, because they too have something to say again.