Sporting Clube de Portugal 2002/03 Home Shirt

At first glance it is just another Reebok from the PT era, with white shoulder panels, black piping separating them from the stripes and a darker green made of fine pinstripes interlaced with black. But this shirt carries two pieces of history. It was the first to definitively wear the club's new crest, without the SCP initials, which left it at odds with Sporting's statutes for nearly a decade. And it was the shirt in which a 17 year old named Cristiano Ronaldo made his first team debut, wearing number 28, in his only senior season at Alvalade before leaving for Manchester United. On the pitch, the title defence went badly: Sporting started with the champions patch on the shoulder and finished a distant third, in the year José Mourinho's FC Porto steamrolled the league. It was also the final season at the old Estádio José de Alvalade, demolished the following summer. A shirt of farewells that became the birth certificate of the highest scorer in football history.

Here at Hoopster this is the shirt where it all began: the 28 of a 17 year old kid named Cristiano Ronaldo, in the only senior season the greatest of all played at Alvalade. The rest is world football history.