Manchester City and Internazionale meet tonight in the Champions League final.
Of the previous 68 European Cup/Champions League deciders, the winning team has won adidas kit on 23 occasions but that is not a tally that will increase as neither side wears the three stripes. In fact, they never have.
The last time that this happened was the 2015 final between Barcelona and Juventus but the Italian club changed from Nike to adidas the following season. The only other final between two teams never to don adidas is 1992, when Barça beat Sampdoria.
Naturally, our inclination is to do an FKFS with the two clubs in adidas and thanks to Jim Hearson for suggesting the two seasons – the years that Inter and City joined forces with their current makers.
It was in 1998 that Inter swapped Umbro for Nike and it is a partnership that still endures, with no shortage of experimentation with their Nerazzurri stripes. That first kit kept things fairly simple and for the adidas version we have employed the style used by Argentina at that year’s World Cup.
For City, it was a time of ‘laser blue’, as given to them by Kappa and the adidas Atlético template allows us to replicate the inclusion of navy and maroon.
After Kappa, City had stints with Le Coq Sportif, Reebok, Umbro and Nike before decamping to Puma in 2019. Initially, we had done a simple adidas version of the purple-trimmed home kit that Puma gave City for 2019-20 but, on reflection, we felt that they might go more traditional.
Instead, we looked to the 1970s and the mismatching royal blue and red socks, as well as appropriating the pattern from the 1989-91 City home shirt.
By this stage, Inter were well down the route of trying different things with their stripes and adidas’s Stripes 19 design is right up their strada.
As ever, feedback is welcome, along with requests for future FKFS – comment below or tweet @museumofjerseys.
