- Previous instalments in the series: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14
While the 2003-04 season didn’t provide as many unique adidas goalkeeper styles as 2002-03, there was nevertheless a good level of variation – perhaps for the final time as uniformity was about to become more prevalent.
The marquee design was used by Bayern Munich, Milan, Real Madrid and Schalke and featured a set of fine stripes radiating outwards at increasing intervals over a gradient effect. The shorts design, used with this and other GK shirts, included a shard at the top that curtailed the adidas stripes.
One might have expected Newcastle United to be included among the teams given that design, but instead they had two versions – blue and maroon – of the other main offering, a not-unattractive creation that had panelling on the arms and sides.
The neck was the same as that used on some of adidas’s outfield kits that season, like the Milan and Newcastle change shirts. With the panels only on the front of the sleeves, it gave a ‘France-like’ effect on the adidas markings on the arms (i.e. two different colours between the three stripes). The black and grey variant was used by Bayern Munich and seems to have been the most common elsewhere while Real Madrid had light blue and Benfica two-tone yellow.
In 2002-03, some of adidas’s clubs, like Ajax and Bayer Leverkusen for example, used a goalkeeper shirt that only had the three stripes around the forearm.
This time around, those same clubs used a similar top but one with subtle alterations.
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There were raglan sleeves and different piping – and no adidas stripes at all, though with additional logos on the sleeves, without the company wordmark.
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The silver and yellow were the most popular while red only seems to have been used by Anderlecht.
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We have not found usage of the black one, trimmed in light blue, beyond a Coupe de France appearance by Fabien Barthez, who had returned to Marseille. It was a rare instance of the former France goalkeeper wearing long sleeves
In fact, Barthez was stripeless in two different Marseille goalkeeper shirts that season, but the second was down to his usual preference of going with short sleeves. When worn by his competitor Vedran Runje, this plain all-red kit – missing the club’s crest, for some reason – only had short stripes near the cuff.
It seems to have been unique to l’OM – but if you know of any other examples, please let us know.
Great work as always.
I remember that there was an orange, silver and black variant of the Newcastle design worn by Mark Utting for New Zealand at the 2003 Confederations Cup.
https://www.sporting-heroes.net/content/thumbnails/00251/24961-product.jpg
https://www.photosport.nz/img-get/I0000YMhdI4DpNE8/s/1200/I0000YMhdI4DpNE8.jpg
https://c8.alamy.com/comp/2ECDR7T/football-fifa-confederations-cup-france-2003-group-a-france-v-new-zealand-stade-de-france-saint-denis-france-22603-frances-thierry-henry-is-stopped-by-new-zealand-keeper-mike-utting-and-defender-ryan-nelson-mandatory-credit-action-images-livepic-2ECDR7T.jpg
And there was a silver, black and red design that was also worn by AC Milan (which was also worn by Turkey at the 2003 Confederations Cup, alongside the silver design worn by Ajax)
https://www.picclickimg.com/Hw0AAOSwL5xfspbv/Maglia-AC-MILAN-2003-04-adidas-OPEL-MERIVA-Portiere.webp
About Olympique Marseille, i know that between 2003 and 2006, sometimes, Barthez wore the third kit
and from what i recall, Frank Rost also wore a blue version of the marquee design he wore for Schalke.
https://c8.alamy.com/comp/GBB95E/soccer-german-bundesliga-schalke-v-vfl-wolfsburg-frank-rost-schalke-GBB95E.jpg
Rustu wore also the marquee design Turkey, which was (by closer inspection) light blue and black with red stripes and logo (different from the grey AC Milan 2003-04 second GK kit) in 2003
https://media.gettyimages.com/id/1208739793/de/foto/picture-of-turkish-goalkeeper-rustu-recber-taken-before-the-soccer-confederations-cup-semi.jpg?s=612×612&w=gi&k=20&c=PqEJVe9aBqS9kdoLYeH-ik4Ai4hwEWbc39xF94_eiWQ=
https://c8.alamy.com/comp/2EBH69E/football-fifa-confederations-cup-france-2003-group-b-brazil-v-turkey-st-etienne-france-23603-turkey-team-mandatory-creditaction-images-alex-morton-2EBH69E.jpg
rost same dida?
No. Rost used a blue, light blue and black one, Dida wore a silver, black and red one and Rustu wore a dark blue blue, black and red one.
The red shirt worn by Vedran Runje was actually outfield players’ teamwear. A number of lower division adidas teams wore the style from 2002-2004 and Nigeria wore it as a stop-gap kit after switching from Nike to adidas around 2003.
It wasn’t uncommon in France to see goalkeepers wearing outfield style jerseys.
The red GK shirt, worn by Anderlecht (Zitka), was also worn by Club Brugge’s GK Dany Verlinden.