When goalkeepers wear player's shirts

Esthetics for goalkeepers’ jerseys have mainly developed in two schools of thought: on one side you have sponsors not afraid about daring in patterns and colors, on the other side you have suppliers who don’t diverge from the simplicity of a monochromatic kit. The evolution of this second tendency has flowed into a trend born in the late 90’s and developed into a regular thing over the last seasons which is goalkeepers playing with outfield shirts. This is also related to regulations that ban two teams for wearing common colors in any part of their kit during a game. Second and third kits solve this problem as most of the time they’re plain and realized with colors that don’t necessarily represent a club, but this trend sometimes has gone beyond with keepers playing with the first kit of their teams.

Jorge Campos - Mexico

When you’re looking for oddities between goalkeepers there’s always a name that keeps coming up: Jorge Campos, the striker-goalkeeper who played with the number 9 on his back. Campos did not disappoint the expectations in this case too and you can say he was a trailblazer as in 1998 during the World Cup in France he played against Netherlands wearing the most beautiful Mexico’s green short, the one with the Aztec sun stone on the front.

Gianluigi Buffon - Parma

Parma welcomed back Gianluigi Buffon in the summer of 2021 with a trip down memory lane culminated in the reinterpretation of the red shirt used by the keeper for his Serie A debut in 1995. The club paid respect to him with several other shirts, included the yellow and blue one used by Parma during the historical 1998/99 season, the one that saw the club winning the UEFA Cup.

Gianluigi Buffon - Juventus

Buffon never backed out when it came to esthetics experiments, both on his personal look or his kits. During his time at Juventus he played several times wearing the second or the third kit, but he also managed to play one Serie A game wearing the black and white shirt, most specifically the 2003/04 home kit.

Gianluigi Buffon - Italy

In the video with which PUMA bid farewell to the Italian national team, Buffon reiterated that one of his favourite moments of his career in Azzurro was when he was able to wear the official colour for the first time, in the match in Turin against Macedonia. "We goalkeepers never have the honour of being able to wear the jersey that truly represents a team, a nation and the fans themselves, instead in that case there I was an Azzurro all the way," said the World Champion.

Emil Audero - Sampdoria

It’s easy to find in Serie A examples of goalkeepers wearing outfield players’ shirt. The best one involves Sampdoria with keeper Emil Audero wearing both the second white and the third yellow kit during this season. Last season he wore the red kit too but above all he played with the Blucerchiata shirt, the most beautiful in the world as the club claims.

Iker Casillas – Real Madrid

Iker Casillas played more than 700 official games for Real Madrid: most of the time he used a fully orange or green kit, sometimes he played with third kits realized with dark shades and one time he even wore the iconic camiseta blanca. It happened during the 2006/07 season against Celta Vigo.

Brice Samba – Lens

You can find examples in Ligue 1 too. The reference in this case is Lens’ Brice Samba: the former Nottingham Forest’s keeper during this season played wearing both the first red and yellow kit and the second black and green kit.

Bartlomiej Dragowski – Fiorentina and Spezia

It also happened that a team fully embraced the idea of not creating a kit for goalkeepers. That’s what happened at Fiorentina with Kappa: during the 2021/22 season goalkeepers played every game with a different outfield kit, included the Viola first kit, like Bartlomiej Dragowski did. He also wear the Spezia third kit during this season.