Earlier this year, we looked at Bayern Munich’s special ‘Brazil’ kit, worn to bust the curse they felt had enveloped them for away games against Kaiserslautern in the 1980s.
That initiative was the idea of coach Udo Lattek, who was naturally superstitious. While the yellow shirts and white socks of the Brazil kit were not seen after the one-off outing against Kaiserslautern, the shorts were retained as an alternative home set.
They were used away to Hamburg in March 1987, for instance, but had also been seen in the 1986 DFB Pokal final against Stuttart, with Bayern having lost the 1985 decider against Bayer Uerdingen in all-red.
The all-red look didn’t hinder them as they won the Bundesliga by six points. In their European Cup run, the light-blue shorts, and matching socks, were used away to PSV but otherwise it was all-red against Austria Vienna and Anderlecht and the first leg of the semi-final at home to Real Madrid, a 4-1 win.
The blue shorts were worn in the second leg, a 1-0 defeat, but that didn’t alter the view that they were lucky, and so Lattek insisted that they be used with the red shirts and socks against Porto. The shirt was also notable for carrying the Bayern crest, which was only rarely used on kits back then.
While Ludwig Kögl’s first-half goal put Bayern ahead, Porto came back in the second half and won 2-1 with strikes from Rabah Madjer and sub Juary.
Lattek paid for the loss with his job, and joined Cologne as their director of football, his belief in superstition not shaken.
In his first season there, they finished third, only missing out on second due to Bayern’s better goal difference. While Lattek’s partnership with young coach Christoph Daum played a part in their rise, much of the credit instead went to the blue pullover he wore on matchdays.
I need to keep reading this to remind myself it wasn’t because Bayern’s usual red shorts looked the same as Porto’s darker blue on black and white tellies.
Bloody brilliant stuff, Denis. Amazing, when you think about it, that Bayern didn’t wear a badge in any of their four previous European Cup finals. Cool though – seriously cool.