The color of the shirt of the famous Squadra Azzurra (“Blue Squadron”), the Italian National Team, is a tribute to the Savoys, the royal family that led the unification of Italy in the 19th century.
Blue, the official color of Italian royalty, began to color the football team's uniform in 1911, when the country was still a monarchy.
At the establishment of the republic, in 1946, the only change was the exchange of the royal shield – red with a white cross, representing the family coat of arms – for another with the tones of the flag: green, white and red.
But blue was not the only color of the Italian team. In the team's first two official matches, the uniform was white, simply because the fabric was cheaper.
In 1937, the team adopted an all-black model, a color symbol of the prime minister's fascist government. Benito Mussolini.
The experience was short-lived and blue returned to be the color of the Italy national team's shirt after the Second World War, in 1945.
The option for this color influenced teams from the Italian colony spread across the world.
In Brazil, Cruzeiro also plays with a blue shirt and Palmeiras already used the same color before opting for green. It is worth remembering that the Azzurra is not the only team that has different colors of the flag on its uniform.
The Netherlands, called “A Clockwork Orange”, also wears the tone of its royal family, instead of the red, white and blue of its flag.
Japan prefers the colors of the Japanese Football Federation, white and blue, instead of the red and white of the national flag.
News originally published in Super interesting
