Luciano Spalletti’s Napoli maintained their 100% start to the 2021-22 season with a 1-0 win over Torino on Sunday night, in a frightful special edition kit to mark Halloween.
The black kit with a spider web patterned shirt has the look of the Marvel anti-hero Venom about it and has been this week’s most talked about football strip across the . . . erm . . . web.
Apologies.
We’ve seen and covered novelty football shirts for every kind of occasion from Christmas to Oktoberfest over the years, but as far as we can remember, this might be the first Halloween kit to feature in a professional football fixture.
Napoli swapped Kappa for Emporio Armani’s EA7 luxury sportswear brand over the summer and initial impressions were that not too much had changed aside from the bumper price tag.
In recent seasons, Napoli’s Kappa designs had featured some bold prints and collaborations with notable fashion designers and the first shirts of the Emporio Armani era were perhaps a little hurried and left fans wanting more for their €125 asking price.
The club’s home kit still maintained that familiar electric blue hue, with the usual array of sponsors logos dominating the front of the shirt, leaving critics to claim that there really wasn’t much difference from Kappa’s final Azzurri design.
If that first collection of kits had the feeling of being rushed and formulaic it was probably down to tight production time scales, so perhaps this spooky, special edition strip gives us a glimpse of what might come from this partnership.
Napoli are a club who have prolifically released new shirts over the past few seasons, so don’t be surprised to see a couple more collaborations before the 2021-22 season is out.
Is Napoli’s web-slinging Halloween shirt a trick or treat?
Please let us know in the comments section below!
UPDATE: Napoli gave the shirt a second outing on the 28th October in their 3-0 home victory over Bologna.
Sartorial Soccer 