Sporting Clube de Portugal 2013/14 Home Shirt

Puma's farewell after eight seasons was also the shirt of a fresh start. Sporting were coming off the worst finish in their history, a seventh place in 2012/13 that shamed generations, and with Bruno de Carvalho newly elected and Leonardo Jardim on the bench the team turned it around in a single season: second place, a return to the Champions League and a spine of Rui Patrício, William Carvalho, Adrien and Fredy Montero that made Alvalade want to watch football again. The shirt tracked the change of cycle in its sponsors too: the PT group consolidated its brands and MEO's black block debuted on the chest, with youth brand MOCHE on the sleeve and the purple Liga Zon Sagres patch on the shoulder, a combination that dates the piece to the exact year. In design, Puma repeated the classic 2011/12 formula, with SCP above the crest and the collar now pointed, and brought back an old quirk: the green hole on the back, the patch interrupting the hoops that purists never forgave. It left with style and with the house in order. Few manufacturers get to say goodbye like that.

Here at Hoopster this farewell is also a restart: the last Puma dressed the resurrection after the worst year in the club's history, with Jardim giving Alvalade back its appetite for football. Some goodbyes taste like a first day.