Sporting Clube de Portugal 2022/23 Home Shirt

In Nike's second year, green took over the shirt, with the white hoops reduced to thin piped bands and black closing off collar and cuffs. Betano on the chest, Super Bock on the back, a sober uniform for a rollercoaster season. In the league things went wrong early and the final fourth place was the worst of the Amorim era, with the Taça da Liga final lost to Porto on top of it. But in Europe this shirt lived enormous nights: the 2-0 win over Tottenham at Alvalade in the Champions League and, in the Europa League, the tie that entered club history against Arsenal, then leaders of the Premier League, settled at the Emirates with Pedro Gonçalves's near 40 metre lob and a penalty shootout win with Adán as the hero. The run only stopped in the quarter finals, against Juventus. A lesser season at home, a giant one abroad, followed by the 2023/24 title. Proof that sometimes the shirts of the crooked years keep the straightest nights.

Here at Hoopster this shirt lives off its European nights: Tottenham bent in Alvalade and Pote's lob at the Emirates, light in a crooked league season. Some campaigns are redeemed whole by a single memory.