Liverpool FC’s Roberto Firmino with an HYT H0

Usually, professional football players show a preference for a handful of watch brands. They are usually spotted with mainstream brands like Audemars Piguet, Hublot, Patek Philippe, Richard Mille or Rolex. I have observed a couple of players with timepieces from A. Lange & Söhne and Patek, and also watches from independent brand Urwerk. This leads us to today’s player who has purchased a watch that tells the time using an unconventional method. Here’s Roberto Firmino’s HYT watch.

Roberto Firmino is a Brazilian football (or soccer for our US readers…) player for English Premier League club Liverpool FC and the Brazil national team, as an attacking midfielder, forward or winger. On 31 August 2019, Firmino became the first Brazilian player to score 50 goals in the Premier League when he netted the third and final goal in a 3–0 win over Burnley.

He recently purchased a watch from HYT. HYT Watches are special since they utilise fluids to indicate a part of the time, which is certainly unconventional and makes their timepieces standout.

The model Firmino chose was the H0 Silver – check our review of the gold version of this watch here. It has a 48mm titanium case with a blue and silver colour scheme. The domed sapphire crystal sits on top of the watch like a clear cover, which allows for an unimpeded reading of the time. The H0 has a regulator style layout with a twist: the minutes are indicated by a conventional hand at the 12 o’clock position, the subsidiary seconds at 9 o’clock and the power reserve at 3 o’clock.

The retrograde hour is indicated by a curved glass tube around the dial. This is filled with two liquids, one clear and one coloured (blue for this model). The flow rate is controlled by the two bellows at the 6 o’clock position, to ensure the coloured liquid shows the correct hour. It is still a completely mechanical watch, that is manually wound and has a power reserve of 65 hours.

I’ve only seen one other person of note purchasing an HYT, so it is nice to see Roberto Firmino acquiring an “outside the box” timepiece, with a legitimate cool factor. More details at www.hytwatches.com.