Unione Sportiva Sassuolo Calcio, the professional football club from the town of Sassuolo in Emilia-Romagna, uses a shield-shaped crest divided into four sections. The badge is predominantly black and green, the colors that give the club its “Neroverdi” nickname, and it incorporates elements drawn from the city’s own coat of arms.
Design and History
The current crest has been in use since 2010. It is divided into four sections and contains a football, the inscription “U.S. Sassuolo,” and three mountains, a symbol that also appears on the city’s emblem.[1] The three mountains are a stylized representation of the hills on which the town of Sassuolo sits.[2]
The club’s visual identity has deeper roots. A shield similar in shape and field divisions to that of FC Barcelona appeared on Sassuolo shirts in the late 1990s. That earlier version was decorated in its lower part with black and green stripes and a football, while the upper area was split into two sections: the left showed the three hills of the city emblem, and the right repeated the black and green stripes. A horizontal band dividing the sections carried the club’s name.[3]
For the club’s centenary in July 2020, Sassuolo presented a special version of its logo. The club kept its historical symbol but added the number 100 in the lower part of the crest on a gold background, a version used on the new shirts for the 2020/2021 season.[4] The centenary logo was unveiled at a press conference on July 16, 2020, one day before the 100th anniversary of the club’s first official affiliation with the FIGC.[5] The standard crest returned to the shirts for the following 2021/2022 season.[6]
Meaning and Symbolism
The black and green palette is the defining element of Sassuolo’s identity, reflected in the nickname “Neroverdi” (black and greens). These colors were not the club’s original choice. When Sassuolo began its footballing activity, it used the yellow and red of the municipal coat of arms. The green and black were adopted only from the 1972/1973 season onward.[2] An earlier account notes that the club originally wore the yellow and red colors of the town’s crest before later switching to black and green.[7]
The three hills in the crest reference the local geography of Sassuolo, which sits on hills in the Emilia-Romagna region.[2] The football depicted in the badge is a straightforward reference to the sport itself, while the black and green stripes echo the club’s adopted colors.[3]
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