Premier League: Why are Manchester City wearing Milan-like red and black striped jersey?

As the current Premier League winners, Manchester City and PUMA have unveiled their away uniform for the next 2022-23 season. The design is a contemporary update on a retro 1970s style.

The reigning English champions have paid homage to the club’s illustrious former championship teams.The three rivers that run through Manchester served as inspiration for the new design, which has diagonal red and black stripes across the length of the kit.

Some of Pep Guardiola’s players visited the NASA Space Center in Houston, the US, to commemorate the launch and the anniversary of the first lunar landing on July 20, 1969. The datealso marks the debut of City’s new red and black away shirt,during their pre-season tour match against Club America.

The reason whyManchester City havered and black striped 2022-23 away jersey

Manchester City unveil black and red striped away jersey. (Mancity.com)

Using amusing comparisons between the two towns, their clichés, and their respective club legacies, theofficial Manchester City promotional video for the jersey alludes to the garment’s evident parallels with current Serie A champions Milan‘s famed red and black stripes.It’s a nod to City’s 1969 FA Cup-winning jersey, which was itself ‘inspired by AC Milan’,as the film announcing the jersey’s release notedmany times.

So what do the Sky Blues and the Rossoneri have in common?Tommy Booth, who was a stalwart on thatchampionship-winning City team told Mancity.com in October2021: “The special red and black kit was definitely [legendary assistant manager]Malcolm Allinson’s idea,”

“He had seen the brilliant AC Milan side of the late 1960s wearing that shirt and Mal said they look awesome in that. They also won a European Cup and Cup Winners Cup wearing red and black stripes, so Malcom’s view was: ‘We will wear that too.’ We loved it and it became a bit of a lucky strip for us too.”

In addition, Mike Summerbee, a wingerfrom that classic team and now a beloved representative of the English clubagreedwith Booth: “Wearing that kit made you feel bigger than you were and I thought we looked pretty good in that strip – people were a bit afraid of us.”

City won the 1969 FA Cup while donning the red and black colors, after emerging victorious against Everton 1-0 in the Semi-Finals at Villa Park and then overLeicester1-0 in the Final at Wembley.The next year, they won both the European Cup Winners’ Cup and the League Cup, leaving little question that the fortunate jersey had been ingrained in their culture and history.