La Liga: Why are teams playing in old shirts this weekend in Spain?

This is not the first time this season that football teams have celebrated the club’s history.

Italian club Juventus recently unveiled their fourth jersey during their 2-0 home defeat to Como, a joint collaboration with Adidas and Studio Sgura inspired by the 1996-97 season jersey.

In March, Liverpool released a range of retro shirts, which include 1960s-inspired shirts as well as the team’s 2005 home shirt, beloved for its association with their famous Champions League win in Istanbul.

Arsenal’s famous ‘Banana’ kit from the 1991-92 season has been redesigned to match the team’s away kit for the 2019-20 season.

Nike recently relaunched its T90 range, and Adidas’ 2026 World Cup jerseys now feature the original Adidas Trefoil badge on the chest 36 years later, a reinterpretation of the classic 90s look.

The general rise in vintage football shirts has now been reported as a business empire approaching £40 million by Classic Football Shirts.

Football fans aren’t the only ones obsessed with nostalgia, says Jordan Clarke, founder of Footballerfits, an Instagram platform that explores the relationship between football and fashion culture.

“I think nostalgia is something in society and not just in football. A lot of people look back fondly at times during their lives, when they were younger, and there was less anxiety in the world. They look back and dream of going back to those times.

“Football is just a microcosm of what society feels like in the world we live in these days.”

There has been some criticism of the Premier League amid claims it has become boring due to time-wasting tactics, VAR interference, player fatigue, and a focus on systems rather than individuals.

“The game has become a bit robotic. It’s become a lot different to what we grew up with, so there’s less self-expression in the game, less personality on the pitch, with managers wanting to control every aspect of the game,” Clark said.

“I think players are really looking to express themselves through outside things, like fashion, music, other sports or just culture as a whole.

“For me, this rise has come from players looking for alternative ways to express themselves when they can’t play like Neymar these days, or can’t do the things that the players they grew up watching used to do.”