Ahead of Saturday’s Champions league final between PSG and Inter Milan, PlayStyles have looked back through the archives at the best-dressed sides to have won it.
Stay to the end for a quiz!
5. FC Barcelona 2009
You can’t see this shirt without instantly seeing Thierry Henry, Samuel Eto’o and a young Lionel Messi leaping to give FC Barcelona the trophy against Manchester United.
The shirt is so simple, but it’s one instantly recognisable by most as the 2008-09 shirt, which puts it into the top five – not every shirt can do that.
4. FC Barcelona 1992
One of the greatest teams of all time, the FC Barcelona 1992 European champions boasted a squad with the likes of Pep Guardiola, Michael Laudrup and Ronald Koeman, and gave the Catalans their first-ever win in the competition.
Being able to pull off this shade of orange is impressive in itself, but Meyba smashed it out of the park with this design, integrating their branding on the shoulders in an innovative way.
It’s been re-released by the club and a remake is currently available on their online store.
3. Borussia Dortmund 1997
Borussia Dortmund and Nike were a match made in neon heaven, so it was fitting that they won the Champions League in this era.
Die Continentale have gone down as one of the most iconic sponsors in history – and by ’97, they seem to have decided that they didn’t even need their name on the shirts any more.
Fair enough.
The team itself beat Alessandro del Piero, Zinedine Zidane and Christian Vieri’s Juve side 3-1 to lift the Champions League trophy.
2. Juventus 1996
Juve did, however, win the trophy the year before, and they did it in a gorgeous blue away kit against holders Ajax in Rome.
Maybe the stars on the shoulders were a prophecy, because a star-studded side took the game on penalties.
Kappa shoulders and collars are spectacular to this day, but this has to be one of their best efforts.
1. AFC Ajax 1995
Ajax are fashion icons of the game, with their white and red design instantly recognisable across the world, but it’s an away shirt that takes the cake in this ranking.
We’ve never seen another shirt like it before or since, even down to the sponsor integration – with a 90 degrees-rotated logo. This was also the first time a team had won Europe’s most prestigious competition wearing a sponsor logo, as rules were relaxed due to a change in the agreement with the European Broadcasting Association making it acceptable to wear them in televised games, finally.
The collar, the repeated pattern of the team’s badge, the shades of blue and red… it’s so off-piste and crazy, and yet, somehow, classy. Genius.
It was also a hell of a team that won it – the likes of Frank Rijkaard, Edwin van der Sar, Frank de Boer, Edgar Davids and Marc Overmars defeated a team Paolo Maldini, Franco Baresi and Marcel Desailly thanks to a late winner from Patrick Kluivert.
The two sides had also met twice in the group stage that year, with the Dutch side winning both games 2-0.
Featured image: Wikimedia Commons
