The evolution of adidas goalkeeper shirt designs – Part 15

• 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.