Real Madrid return to the talismanic purple jersey

Friday, real Madrid revealed the team second kit for the 2022-23 season. It’s purple – a color strongly linked to the club’s past, although rarely used in recent years – although it seems to have brought the team quite a bit of success, especially in the Champions League. Next season’s design, makers Adidas say, is inspired by the atmosphere inside the stadium before games. A launch date has already been set – Madrid will be wearing their new purple kit for the weather against Juventus in a preseason friendly in Los Angeles on July 30.

To model and promote the new kit, Madrid elected four first-team players: Vinicius, Militão, Kroos and Asensio. That Asensio was chosen is a bit surprising as he only has one year left on his contract and could leave the club this summer. His agent, Jorge Mendes, is already sounding the market and looking for offers. Members of the women’s team, Therese Abelleira, Esther and Nahikari also participated in the promotional filming.

Purple is a color with a constant presence throughout Madrid’s history. He first appeared in the early 1980s, as a trim when the club signed with Adidas. Later Hummel supported the shirt and maintained the color in subtle detail. Both UEFA Cups won in 1985 and 1986 date back to this entire period, as well as the 1981 European Cup Final in Paris against Liverpool which Madrid lost 1-0.

Purple was also used in detail (for the second stripe, blue gained weight) in the kit worn for the five consecutive leagues won by the Quinta del Buitre. And from 1994, with the entry of Kelme as the hallmark Madrid wore, purple has seen a revival – appearing in photos of two iconic league titles: 1994-95 (the memorable 5-0 win against Barcelona at the Bernabéu) and 1996-97 (Capello’s team, beating Barcelona with a young and unstoppable Ronaldo Nazário). The kit Madrid wore when they won The Septima in Amsterdam also had purple detailing while the second kit was all purple; to wear it, Los Blancos to beat Bayer Leverkusen on the way to the semi-finals.

A purple cyclone devastated Juventus

With the start of the new century, the purple fell into disuse, although it continued to feature in successes such as the 2007–08 League, which was won with an 18-point advantage over Barcelona; in the 2010-11 season, José Mourinho’s first on the bench, in which he won a Copa del Rey against Barça with special significance; and, above all, 2016-17, the year of the League-Champions League double in which Madrid had to play the UCL final against Juventus in purple, since the Italian team was designated as the locals. The color, once again, was talismanic: a 1-4 victory in Cardiff, with a second-half exhibition that defeated Allegri’s men, who between the group stage and the round of 16 had only conceded three goals; in the decisive match, they took four, hit by a purple cyclone.

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During the last years, real Madrid and Adidas experimented when choosing the color of the second kit, for reasons more related to marketing than to the history of Madrid: black, coral pink, light green, orange and even pink. But for this 2022-23 season, in which Madrid must reaffirm all the successes achieved in the 2021-22 season (double League-Champions and a Spanish Super Cup as a bonus), purple is back, a talisman color that brings good luck.