Perhaps no football shirt symbolised 2020 quite like Italian side Pescara’s image of a dolphin rising above a rainbow to head-home a message of hope for a world in lockdown.
At the height of the global pandemic, talented 6 year-old Luigi D’Agostino entered a competition to design a new football shirt for Serie B side Pescara and melted the frozen hearts of fans much, much older than the Italian schoolboy.
Shortly after Erreà brought the shirt to life, global news networks picked up on young Luigi’s achievement and the shirt sold in droves, becoming a must for shirt collectors across the globe.
Pescara even wore the shirts as warm-up tops before the conclusion of the 2019-20 season.
Looking at the image of his entry next to the finished product, Master D’Agostino is clearly a child prodigy that Erreà must sign to a golden-handcuffs contract.
They should finance his education and make sure his parents are provided with honoury roles in the company.
In short, Erreà should do for D’Agostino exactly what Barcelona did for a young Lionel Messi.
Of course the youth of the designer and the quality of his artwork reminds us of the time when Del Boy entered a grown-up Rodney Trotter into a painting competition for teenagers, but having said that, we believe in Luigi.
This is exactly the type of initiative that helps kids fall in love with football and we hope this shirt inspires more boys and girls to get their felt tip pens out and have a go themselves.
Good on Luigi D’Agostino, good on Pescara, and good on Erreà for producing a little ray of hope in the form of a football shirt at a particularly difficult time in our collective global consciousness.
Sartorial Soccer 