Broad hoops, black button-up polo collar, meo in black across the chest and Super Bock across the back: Puma designed a sober shirt for a season that was anything but. On the back, the 6 of Khalid Boulahrouz, the Dutch "Cannibal" who arrived from Stuttgart with 35 caps and two World Cups, started as a regular and ended on the bench, overtaken by young Tiago Ilori, with 19 games played before leaving a year later.
It was the worst league season in Sporting's history: seventh place, four managers (Sá Pinto, Oceano, Vercauteren and Jesualdo Ferreira), a Europa League group-stage exit and a crisis that toppled Godinho Lopes and carried Bruno de Carvalho to the presidency in March 2013. The shirt of rock bottom, one year before Jardim began the climb.
Here at Hoopster we keep the good years and the bad ones, and this is the shirt of a Sporting that had to hit the floor to remember who it was.