Sporting Clube de Portugal 2003/04 Home Shirt

After two seasons of white panels cutting across the stripes, Reebok returned to orthodoxy: clean hoops all the way round, a brighter green, and the green zone around the collar as the only liberty taken. PT on the chest, Banco Espírito Santo on the back. This is the shirt of a house move: on 6 August 2003, Sporting inaugurated the Estádio José Alvalade XXI with a 3-1 win over Manchester United, the match in which a departing Cristiano Ronaldo gave John O'Shea such a torrid evening that the English club closed his transfer days later. It was in this design that the team played its first season at the new stadium, built for the Euro 2004 that Portugal would host that summer. On the pitch, with Fernando Santos on the bench, the season ended in third place. With no trophies to its name, this shirt tells a different story: the moment Alvalade stopped being the old 1956 ground and became the stadium known today. Every move needs a shirt, and this was it.

Here at Hoopster this shirt opened a house and closed a deal: the 3-1 over Manchester United at Alvalade XXI's debut, with Ronaldo giving the runaround that took him to England days later. Few cloths opened so many doors in a single night.