The only time of Fiorentina's red FILA jersey

There are two photos that more than others managed to capture Serie A’s greatness at the end of the 90's, two snapshots that can tell exactly the reason why the Italian league was the best in the world back then. The first one involves Alessandro Del Piero and Ronaldo, a handshake in favor of the photographers before the kick-off of Juventus-Inter: the two most famous players of the two Italian teams best known in the world. The second photo is not as famous as the first one, probably it’s mostly known in Italy as over the recent years it become a symbol of nostalgia: it involves Juan Sebastian Veron and Gabriel Batistuta, two Argentinian players that just like Del Piero and Ronaldo hold each other in a light embrace in favor of the photographers. To make the photo special is not the game itself, even if back then Parma and Fiorentina were two middle teams trying to overturn the hierarchies in Italian football, but the jerseys. In 1998 Parma took a risk with an aesthetic revolution leaving their plain white jersey for blue and yellow horizontal stripes while Fiorentina that afternoon played for the first and the last time with a red jersey destined to become iconic.

The jersey was created by FILA, the Italian manufacturer that replaced Reebok one year earlier as kit supplier for Fiorentina. For the 1998/99 season, FILA decided to break with tradition by replacing the big fleurs-de-lis that in the years prior stood out either in the center or on the side of the jerseys. They did not disappear at all, as red fleurs-de-lis are the most recognizable symbol of Florence, but they were hidden inside a strange pattern that developed all along the edges of jersey and shorts, tiny ellipsoidal elements placed close one to the other. A gimmick that came at a time in history when variations only concerned the aesthetic appearance of football jersey. Only the introduction of the Kombat model by Kappa forced the hand and pushed kit suppliers to rethink textiles and wearability of a jersey, before that moment all football shirts followed the same pre-established model with soft shapes. In spite of this, that Fiorentina’s jersey flashed a detail that make it iconic still of today, the introduction of the Nintendo’s logo in the middle of it: a perfect solution in terms of font and color that fit perfectly with the home and away jersey sublimating its perfection with the third red jersey as the shape of red used for the Nintendo logo was the same one used for the jersey and for the fleurs-de-lis inside the club’s crest.

If you add to all these aesthetic elements the fact that this jersey was worn by magnificent football players like Gabriel Batistuta, Edmundo or Manuel Rui Costa then you’ll have the perfect recipe for turning a regular football jersey into a must have. A peculiar pattern, fine details and legendary footballers with on top of that the fact that the jersey was only worn once. There is not a specific reason for it or an official quote to justify the fact that during the 1998/99 season Fiorentina played in red just in one official game. Probably it has been just a coincidence dictated by the usages of the time with teams using home and away jerseys most of the time and reducing the usage of third jerseys to specific situations. The other side of the coin for this one-time appearance is that it has increased the charm of a jersey that was nowhere to be seen during that season and even in the years after: for the 1999/00 season, the last one for FILA as Fiorentina’s kit supplier, the ellipsoidal pattern was confirmed but the third jersey from red turned into yellow. Fiorentina’s fans had to wait until the 2002/03 season to see their team playing in red again but despite all the different models created since then, no shirt has managed to replicate the beauty of that red jersey only worn once.