Eighty years ago, Sampdoria didn’t yet exist as we know it. What existed were Sampierdarenese and Andrea Doria, two Genoese clubs with their own histories and fanbases, which merged in 1946 to create the blucerchiati, even lending it their name (Sam from Sampierdarenese, Doria from Doria itself). It’s a merger that has always stayed somewhat in the background of the collective imagination, overshadowed by the blue-and-white club everyone knows today. For the 80th anniversary, Macron and Sampdoria went back to it, presenting two kits that don’t celebrate the club as it is today, but the two teams that, by merging, ceased to exist.

The Samp jersey takes its colors from Ginnastica Comunale Sampierdarenese, founded in 1891: a cream-white base crossed by two wide horizontal stripes, one red and one black, with a black knit collar and cuffs. The Doria jersey instead looks to Ginnastica Andrea Doria, founded in 1900, reviving the historic white-and-blue quartered pattern, navy on the right side and white on the left, reversed on the sleeves, with the Cross of St. George applied to the chest, the same symbol that identifies the city of Genoa on its banners. Both jerseys feature the anniversary’s celebratory logo, an 80 in which the zero becomes the shield of St. George, enclosed in a laurel wreath topped by the profile of Baciccia, the club’s historic mascot.

The two jerseys remain distinct by design, they don’t function as home and away, “forget away, forget third” the club writes in its statement, a way of saying these kits shouldn’t be read within the usual away-kit hierarchy, but as two portraits in their own right.

On the technical side, both are made from Eco Poly Piquet, a fabric made from post-consumer recycled polyester, with an Eco Micromesh back panel for breathability, in short, the one concession to the present in a kit that otherwise works in the opposite direction, bringing back to light two clubs dissolved eighty years ago and giving them, for a season, a jersey of their own.