What's the future of fourth jerseys in football? The 2020/2021 season was also marked by the explosion of the fourth kit trend
The 2020/2021 season was the one of the definitive explosion of the fourth shirts trend in football. Juventus, Inter, Napoli, but also Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Arsenal all presented a fourth kit, and in most cases, they also had the opportunity to show it on the pitch. At the moment, their use is limited to a few events. The celebration of an anniversary or the debut of a collaboration with a fashion brand are the reasons that often lead to the production of a fourth shirt. For example, Juventus' fourth kit was taken from the collaboration between adidas and Human Made; Napoli's fourth shirt is obviously taken from the Kappa x Marcelo Burlon County of Milan collection; the one of Crotone looks like an old PSG home jersey. On the other hand, other fourth jerseys, such as those of Tottenham, Chelsea and Liverpool, haven't seen the pitch due to the strict rules on the matter. In this case, they were jerseys inspired by a Nike sneaker: for example, the fourth Tottenham shirt is inspired by the Air Max 95 OG Neon, with an Air Max logo on the front of the shirt.
The four jerseys produced by Nike are the so-called "Association" (the light-coloured "Home" jersey), "Icon" (the dark-coloured "Road" jersey, the away one), "Statement", actual third jerseys, which also are often a tribute to some old jerseys of the team (Nike, adidas and PUMA already follow this trend), and "City", paying homage to the city in which the team is based. Obviously, all this is due to the presence of a single supplier in the league, which is the Beaverton brand, but who knows if someday this type of deal will not be signed with some specific club, giving carte blanche to the supplier in charge.
Furthermore, after the appointment of Daniel Arsham as creative director of the Cleveland Cavaliers, it would not surprise me that a similar solution was adopted in the world of football. Big clubs are always looking for a strong identity that distinguishes them - even beyond the team's performance on the pitch - and a visionary personality like the American designer would be perfect for taking care of the aesthetics of the teams, perhaps personally approving the jerseys designed by the producers or collaborating with them on special kits, such as a fourth jersey. In a historical period in which football teams think like companies, aesthetics is a fundamental component to have followers, and this matter, in the not so distant future, also seems to include the creation of a fourth kit.
