Parma is a place of tradition We were at the Tardini stadium on the day the new Third Kit, inspired by 1995, made its debut

In Parma they know perfectly well how to reinvent tradition. Strong choices are needed, such as the decision to revolutionize the club colours. At the end of the 1980s Parmalat's arrival coincided with an epochal change: the black cross on a white background, a historic symbol of the club, was removed to make way for an all-white shirt created for commercial reasons. A kit that entered the club's history because it was worn in 1993 by captain Lorenzo Minotti and his teammates on the day of the historic Cup Winners' Cup victory, beating Antwerp at Wembley. Over the years there were several variations on the theme and the most important was introduced by PUMA in the 1995/96 season, with Parma finishing second and obtaining the club's first historic qualification to the Champions League. The sleeves exhibit a design of yellow arches interrupting a blue pattern, with the blue's shade lightening from the center to the edges.

To celebrate the 30 years of the partnership with the club, PUMA revisited this kit for the 2025/26 season and the home match against Torino was the occasion to see it on the pitch for the first time. A special day for Parma fans, not only because it coincided with the first league victory thanks to a brace from Mateo Pellegrino. The celebrations had already begun in the morning in the splendid setting of the Teatro Regio with Fabio Cannavaro leading a group of legends composed, among others, by Diego Fuser, Ze Maria, Dino Baggio and Marco Ballotta. All present to pay tribute to a crucial piece of the club's history, an iconic shirt that definitively put both the city of Parma and the club on the map for football fans and jersey collectors.

The second stop of this special day was, of course, the Tardini, Parma's home stadium. A 22,000-seat venue located in the heart of the city, nestled among dozens of buildings that in some places look out directly onto the playing field. And it is here that tradition reinvents itself, once again. To understand how rich Parma's history is, just take a walk through the stands and glance at the shirts worn by the fans. An aesthetic melting pot in which white shirts with the black cross, yellow-and-blue horizontally striped shirts, goalkeeper shirts and of course the iconic white shirt in its original version coexist peacefully. And then there is the tradition that reinvents itself in the figure of a child wearing the new PUMA kit but personalized with Hernan Crespo's number 9, a club legend. This confirms that nostalgia for its own sake is a trap. The decision to reissue historic kits must start from a larger reason and in Parma it means passing the club's history down from generation to generation so that the sporting and aesthetic heritage is never forgotten.