Sporting Clube de Portugal 1996/97 Home Shirt

In its fifth season with Sporting, adidas reworked both fabric and sleeve. The jacquard swapped the upright lions of previous years for shadowed diagonal stripes with rampant lions woven through them, and the brand's three stripes settled onto the sleeves, a quiet heresy on a hooped shirt. On the chest came Telecel, the mobile operator that would later become Vodafone Portugal and stayed with Sporting until 2000. In domestic competitions the sponsor appeared in a square format, with the large symbol above the wordmark and the logo repeated on both shoulders, the visual signature that dates this shirt beyond doubt. On the pitch, 1996/97 ended in second place, 13 points behind an FC Porto side completing three titles in a row, with the team steadying after a rough start and securing a return to Champions League qualifying. It was also the season player names first appeared on Sporting shirts. The title kept slipping away, but few 90s shirts have aged as well as this one.

Here at Hoopster this shirt dates itself: Telecel repeated on both shoulders and rampant lions woven into the cloth, the signature of a time when even advertising had heraldry. The lion's nineties fit whole inside this jacquard.