The match that changed football boots

Ernst Happel Stadium in Vienna, May 24th 1995. Ajax wins its fourth Champions League in history, beating AC Milan 1-0 in the final. The winning goal is scored by Patrick Kluivert in the final minutes. That match marks a turning point in the history of aesthetics in football. A point of no return, a precise moment that separates the before from the after. And not just because for the first time in Champions League history, the players' surnames appeared on the back of their jerseys, alongside their numbers. No, that match changes the history of football aesthetics for a pair of boots. Worn by Marco Simone, these boots are the Fuoriclasse model produced by Valsport, an Italian company founded in 1920 in Padua, and in the past a point of reference in the supply of sports clothing, from football to cycling to Formula 1, and now mainly focused on sportswear by producing and selling sneakers. Fuoriclasse was a shoe originally made according to the aesthetic standards of the time - black leather with white details and a tongue featuring the logo that could be folded forward to cover the laces, which were always long enough to make one or two passes under the sole before tying them. The revolution takes place when Valsport decides to reverse the aesthetic design and the shoe goes from black with white details to white with black details. Its debut takes place on the biggest stage, the Champions League final.

It's a powerful image. That night, AC Milan plays in a completely white kit and the shoes worn by Marco Simone almost disappear, blending in with the kit. The end result is that of a player wearing a white tuxedo, and those shoes exude a sense of elegance. Until then, there had been very few exceptions to the black shoe with white details. Lotto had sown the first seeds of this revolution with the Stadio, a classic pair of black shoes that became iconic thanks to the green used for the details. In 1994, Diadora tried to break this chromatic monopoly during the World Cup by making a pair of blue shoes, worn by Giuseppe Signori and Roberto Baggio, and a red model, worn by Belgian Enzo Scifo. These experiments went almost unnoticed, especially since in the most famous photo of Baggio at that World Cup - the one with his head down after missing the decisive penalty that gave Brazil the victory - the Divine Ponytail was wearing Diadora shoes, but the classic ones of the time, i.e. black with a fluorescent yellow logo.

In the end, it was Valsport that dealt the blow that caused the first crack in the wall. The chromatic revolution of football shoes began that night in Vienna and nothing could stop it. Soon after, we would see the red Diadora shoes again, this time worn by George Weah (who had become Simone's teammate at Milan), the grey and blue Nike R9 shoes for Ronaldo, the grey and red Lotto PU shoes for Shevchenko, and the iconic white Predator shoes produced by adidas. Thanks to Valsport's white Phenomenon boots, sports brands realized that they could dare with colors in the production of football shoes. Tradition had been broken. It was time to innovate and create a new trend. Not only that, but that Valsport boots created a new market segment: how many kids would want to emulate Marco Simone by wearing a pair of white shoes, and how much would they be willing to pay? Today, we don't even notice it anymore. It seems natural, almost obvious, to see players on the field wearing yellow, pink, purple shoes, or simply matching their socks. However, this trend has a clear origin and it is thanks to Valsport.