The most famous black and white shirt in the world started life... pink. On 1 November 1897, pupils of the Massimo d'Azeglio lyceum in Turin founded Sport-Club Juventus, a team named after the Latin word for "youth". Today Juventus turns 129, and the story of its shirt is one of the most unexpected in football.

A team born at school desks

The founders included the brothers Eugenio and Enrico Canfari. Two years later the club was renamed Foot-Ball Club Juventus, and on 11 March 1900 it played its first official championship match, losing 1-0 to Torinese. The first Italian title arrived in 1905. A year later, president Alfred Dick left to found FBC Torino, laying the foundations for the city derby.

Pink shirt, black tie

The first players wore pink shirts with a black tie. The fabric did not last, though: with every wash the colour faded a little more. In the early 1900s the club decided to find something sturdier and asked for help from John Savage, an Englishman playing in Turin. He had a friend in Nottingham who supported Notts County, and from there black and white striped shirts made their way to Italy.

The parcel that became an identity

The stripes of the English club never changed again. They gave rise to the nicknames Bianconeri (the black and whites) and Zebre (the zebras), while the club also became known as the "Vecchia Signora", the Old Lady. Pink was not forgotten: in recent years Juventus has worn pink change kits as a tribute to its very first shirt. The boldest twist on the stripes came in 2019-20, with a shirt half white and half black, the first of its kind in the club's history.

Stars, zebras and a J

Above the crest Juventus wears three golden stars, one for every ten league titles: the 10th came in 1957-58, the 20th in 1981-82 and the 30th in 2013-14. In 1979, when the Italian league first allowed manufacturer logos, Kappa appeared on the shirt along with a black rampant zebra. The first shirt sponsor, Ariston, arrived in 1981. Lotto, Nike from 2003 and Adidas from 2015 followed, while Jeep stayed on the chest from 2012 to 2022. The crest changed many times: in the 1980s it showed the silhouette of a zebra with two golden stars, in 2004 it became an oval shield with the bull of Turin, until in 2017 Andrea Agnelli unveiled the minimalist "J".

The Agnelli family and the great eras

In 1923 Edoardo Agnelli became president, and the family has been tied to the club ever since. In the 1930s the team won five consecutive league titles, a record at the time. Under Giovanni Trapattoni came the 1977 UEFA Cup and, in 1985, the first European Cup. The second followed in 1996 with Marcello Lippi on the bench. If you miss the Nike years, the 2007/08 home shirt is one of the classic black and white stripes of that period.

From Serie B to nine in a row

In July 2006, after the Calciopoli scandal, Juventus was relegated to Serie B for the first time and stripped of its 2004-05 title. It bounced straight back, and in September 2011 moved into its own stadium, known since 2017 as the Allianz Stadium. From 2011-12 to 2019-20 it won nine consecutive league titles, the first unbeaten under Antonio Conte. A souvenir of those years is the 2014/15 third shirt with Pogba's name.

Happy birthday, Old Lady. From a faded pink shirt to three golden stars, every stripe of yours has a story to tell.

See Juventus shirts and merchandise at sportarena.gr.

Photo: Allianz Stadium – Gabriele Barberis, Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 it.