When you see royal blue paired with white, red and black bands across the chest in the style of the St George’s Cross, you immediately think of Sampdoria. Few clubs have that same level of instant recognisability.
For the club’s 80th anniversary, the club has firmly stuck to these roots alongside Macron, who too has wisely resisted the urge to start fiddling.
The new 2026/27 home shirt looks back to Sampdoria’s beginnings in 1946, when Sampierdarenese and Andrea Doria merged. A knitted polo collar gives the shirt a proper old-school Italian feel, while the stripes and the crest sit where they should.
There are details, because this is an anniversary kit and people enjoy details. The shirt carries an embossed 80th-anniversary graphic featuring the St George’s Cross, a laurel wreath and Baciccia, Sampdoria’s pipe-smoking sailor.
Gold trim inside marks the years 1946 and 2026 alongside the club’s trophies, while the white-and-blue hooped socks have been lifted from its earliest kits. It is heritage done without the usual museum-gift-shop energy.
Macron, meanwhile, is having a very good run of it. While some of the industry’s biggest names continue to push global templates dressed up as bespoke storytelling, the Italian brand has become one of the most reliable kit makers around.
From Bologna and AJ Auxerre to Viktoria Plzen and Wrexham, Macron is designing kits for a whole plethora of sides across Europe and, impressively, none of which look the same. Its best shirts feel specific to the clubs wearing them, which sounds obvious until you remember how frequently it does not happen.
The clever thing with Sampdoria is that Macron has clearly understood the assignment. Sampdoria already has one of the game’s great visual identities, so it did not need reinvention.
Instead, it needed someone to leave the important bits alone and make everything else look good – which is exactly what has happened. Eighty years on, Sampdoria still has one of football’s most beautiful shirts and this version gives everyone another reason to say it.
