Borussia Dortmund played with a jersey never presented

Borussia Dortmund made their Champions League debut wearing a PUMA kit that was never unveiled. It was only hours before the match that the German club showed the shirt they would wear against Beşiktaş directly from the dressing room at the Vodafone Arena in Istanbul. It will be the third kit of the season, although it will mainly be used on European nights due to the colour similarity with the first jersey. A quiet and unannounced debut, then, with a strategy we had already seen last year with the (late) launch of the last kit of the 2020-21 season. The template used is very similar to the one chosen by PUMA for all the third kits of the top clubs, even if in August BVB had announced with a tweet that it would distance itself from the template, confirming that the third shirt "will not look anything like the images circulating on the web". A story that started with the strong voice of the fans, however, did not turn into reality.

Although the kit has historical references - the reference to the font used by Borussia Dortmund in the 1975-76 season is evident in the central part of the jersey - it looks very much like the template of AC Milan, City, Marseille and many others. The fluorescent colour follows the archival trend that many brands are picking up on and Borussia are historically and aesthetically very attached to a colour that especially in the 1990s became iconic and representative. A detail that differentiates the Yellow Wall jersey from other PUMA teams' third jerseys is the presence of the single club crest, shown on the jersey in relief, tone on tone and not repeated along the whole pattern.

There are mainly two aspects that make the history of this shirt controversial: the first is related to the writing that is in the central box created by the German brand, the second concerns the spoilers that took place on Tuesday. The diatribe, which also involved the fans, on the wording to be inserted in the centre of the jersey was related to the words "DORTMUND" and "BVB09". The club was in favour of the first option, while the most prominent members of the fans would have preferred the second. The voice of the people won, at least for this time, after the social protests of the curve. As for the spoilers, however, some users noticed - and immediately tweeted - a jersey available on Tuesday afternoon on JD Sports and Puma's online store in the UK. The products were deleted after a matter of seconds. If that wasn't enough, the new jersey was also visible on Borussia Dortmund's UK account for a few minutes during the same hours.