Remember when Panini "Americanized" Italian football teams?

We are in the mid-1980s, a time when American cultural influence in Italy, which had been expanding over the previous decades, was becoming increasingly pervasive. From TV to cinema, from sports to music, and more generally in daily life: the spread of new technologies was making the crossing of the Atlantic much faster for various products and customs, which were being absorbed with growing familiarity on our side. In the sports realm, major professional leagues were starting to gain traction, particularly football and basketball. The NFL had made its TV debut in 1981, with the first Super Bowl broadcast on Canale 5 and then becoming a regular fixture on Mediaset networks in the following years; a novelty introduced to the Italian public by the now-familiar voices of Guido Bagatta, Rino Tommasi, and Flavio Tranquillo. More or less in parallel, the NBA also made its debut with the first historic game broadcast - delayed by two weeks - in January '81; on Pin (Prima Rete Indipendente), with commentary by Dan Peterson, to inaugurate the imminent golden age of the league globally, on the wings of the Celtics-Lakers rivalry and later the Bulls with Michael Jordan.

This is the context in which Panini's special project for the 1986/87 Calciatori album, featuring the "American-style stickers", fits. It was presented internally as follows: "With a unique initiative, each Serie A and Serie B team is given an American-style sticker that, modeled on major American sports, pairs the club with a name (in English) applicable to the players and related to a characteristic of the city or social symbol, which is also reproduced in graphic design." In other words, catching the public's curiosity about American sports tastes, and specifically about franchise names typically composed of the city and an associated nickname, Panini created a "Americanized rebranding" for each of the 36 clubs that made up Serie A (16) and Serie B (20) at the time. Imagining Juventus, Milan, Inter, Roma, Napoli, and others as American teams, but with references to local culture; and using creativity to offer something new and different, at a time when creativity was the dictate at Panini. For the Modena-based company's collectible products, the 1980s were a period of significant aesthetic innovations, driven by the editorial director of the time, Arrigo Beltrami.

The evolutionary process that led to the half-length portraits of players and the current size of the stickers (49x65 millimeters) was nearing completion. Meanwhile, on the creative front, each edition featured more or less imaginative experiments, such as various reworkings of mascots and sponsors on jerseys (introduced in the 1981/82 season), managed by the internal artistic team. And here comes the 1986 project, which winks at the trend of the time, creating a unique piece in the album's history for its combination of identity and visual elements. The nicknames and logos proposed at that time drew from the culture, history, and symbolism of the clubs and their respective cities. Sometimes with original ideas and styles, other times with somewhat banal concepts and designs (as one might think, nearly forty years later). From the "Como Lakers," "Torino Bulls," and "Avellino Wolves" (clearly inspired by the NBA, respectively Los Angeles, Chicago, and Minnesota) to the "Milan Devils," "Inter Dragons," and "Roma Gladiators"; and further down the categories, the "Bari Cocks," "Catania Elephants," "Modena Yellows," and "Taranto Buccaneers." Trying to identify the best examples, the writer suggests the "Sampdoria Mariners" for Serie A and the "Lanerossi Vicenza Rams" for Serie B. 

The result of the experiment still evokes mixed opinions among collectors and enthusiasts today. However, it is certain that the project has not received the recognition it deserves over time, at least in terms of creativity—setting aside subjective tastes. Today, our eyes are accustomed to the standards of digital graphics and artificial intelligence creations, so much so that we browse these archival albums in PDF format on our smartphones as if they were antiquities. Contextualizing a project, however, does not help to grasp its intrinsic meaning, especially in graphic design; and revisiting these 1986 stickers, we have an interesting testimony to the arrival of American sports in the Italian market, and concurrently, the first attempts—some more successful, others less so—to blend two cultures that were once very different and are now increasingly close. Imagine giving all this to the creative teams of current clubs, and perhaps having a Serie A match with American-style jerseys, names, and logos. Much like in the NBA and NFL, where we see "Noche Latina" or jerseys dedicated to Chinese New Year. Wouldn’t that be fascinating?