Fabio Paratici is building a new look Fiorentina but Joma has beat him to it in the most literal sense. That’s right, we’ve got new unis for the centenary season. The club and its outfitter jointly released a pretty goofy video announcing the shirts. Full credit to Luca Ranieri for being a good sport and taking on the role of “technically deficient doofus.”
The copy in the official
announcement prattles on about the theme “art can be worn,” which I find tiresome, but as someone who’s not all that into kit fashion, I think these are perfectly fine. The detailing “draw[s] inspiration from the ornamental frames of Renaissance artworks” is a bit of a stretch but at least it looks nice, although I don’t get why the sleeves didn’t get the same treatment. I’m also a bit confused by the white armpits. I like the centenary logo too, although it took me a sec to figure out that it’s a 19 turning into a 20.
Publicity materials like this are pretty meaningless but the casting in that video interests me quite a bit. David de Gea, Nicolò Fagioli, Rolando Mandragora, and Ranieri have all been linked to leave the club so putting them front and center makes me think that there’s nothing immediate in the works. Conversely, leaving Pietro Comuzzo out could be a sign that Paratici plans to send him out on loan; Cher Ndour has clearly replaced him as “really talented young player we’re going to highlight.”
After 5 years of Kappa, Joma’s back for its second stint as Fiorentina’s kit maker; the first was from 2012 to 2015, coinciding with Vincenzo Montella’s remarkable 4th-place teams. It’s also interesting that Mediacom remains the sponsor after reports a couple months ago that the Commisso family might withdraw from that part of the deal. We’ll see if it’s still there come the start of the season. That’s the real takeaway from all this, I’d say: it doesn’t mean anything until the games begin.
