What’s the story?
Real Madrid are all set to don their purple third choice kit for the UEFA Champions League final. This comes after a draw selected Juventus as the home side for the Cardiff encounter, and seeing as the Bianconeri have prominent dashes of both black and white in their strip, UEFA have asked them to go with the TV friendly purple.
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In case you didn’t know...
The last time these two giants of European football (33 domestic league titles each, now) met in the final of the continent’s premiere competition, TV-friendliness was not such a great issue, and as such the two clubs were allowed to don their first-choice kits.
Younger Real Madrid fans who do not recall this game will still probably recognise the man trying to split open their team’s defence on the day –
The heart of the matter
Purple is a royal as royal comes, and fits perfectly with the club name “Real” Madrid, which is probably why it was chosen as the colour for the third kit in any case. You may also notice the dash of purple in Los Blancos’ first choice white in the ‘98 season!
This however, still appears to be one of UEFA’s weirder decisions, just like when they forced Atletico Madrid to don their change strip for the Bernabeu leg of their semifinal and Real Madrid to don black for the Calderon part – despite these two having competed in TWO FINALS IN THE LAST THREE YEARS wearing their home kits. Some things about bureacracy, we’ll never understand.
Video
The best bits of the ‘98 CL final.. ‘cos why not?
Author’s Take
Check out the footage above... do you have a problem in differentiating the players? Despite the grainy footage, I have no such qualms. With Juventus wearing all black below the belt, and Madrid wearing all white – neither would there be much confusion on the field even if Madrid were to come up in their first choice white.
But then where would that leave UEFA? Exactly where they are now, but somehow someone (or some people) high up in the organization feel that these lot – these clubs and players and all that – are distracting too much from the limelight that the continental body should be in ideally. Step one, of course, was ensuring that 70% of the tickets go to UEFA and their allied corporate sponsors... step 2 is apparently throwing tradition out the window.
Madrid, though, shouldn’t worry. White, or purple, they still have an on-fire Cristiano Ronaldo and an utterly inspired Zinedine Zidane on their side – in the end after all, it’s who’s wearing the shirt, and not the hues of the shirt, that will determine the winner!
