Iconic kits: FC Porto 2001/02 | OneFootball

It was a bombshell at the time, but then it turned into a cult classic. For the only time in history, FC Porto decided to ditch their famous blue and white stripes for a new revolutionary template that raised some questions within their legion of support. The season brought mixed feelings as well to the club’s core fanbase.

As the years went by and football shirts became even more futuristic, a sense of nostalgia crept in, and that one-off experience suddenly became one of the most cherished kits of the Dragons’ modern history.

Porto lineup 2001/02 (Image: www.paixaopeloporto.blogspot.com)

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For Porto supporters, the 2001/02 season is one of the oddest seasons they can remember. On the one hand, it was a sporting failure. Jorge Nuno Pinto da Costa’s bet on Octávio Machado to shake things up after two trophyless league seasons under Fernando Santos ended in disarray. However, this was also the season that welcomed a young prodigy by the name of José Mourinho back into the club, for was practically a five-month pre-season, where the former União de Leiria coach would have time to test his ideas before taking the club to the greatest years of its history.

It was also only the second season that Porto started the campaign partnering with Nike. Back in 1982, Pinto da Costa tested both Puma and Adidas as official suppliers for the club, with the side even playing matches wearing mixed shirts, shorts and socks from both brands, something that would be unheard of today. Finally, by 1983, the decision to go with Adidas was taken, at a time when Revigrés also became the club’s shirt sponsor, a relationship that lasted until 2004.

Adidas became the kit provider all the way until 1997 before it was replaced by the Italian brand Kappa. For three years, Kappa designed some of the most vanguard and appealing kits in the history of the club, but come the year 2000, Porto decided it was time to switch to Nike.

Nike shakes things up

Porto had little to celebrate in 2001/2002 but the kit used that season has become a collector’s item

The North American brand had entered the world of football timidly in the 1980s, but in the following decade became the only juggernaut powerful enough to defy the mighty Adidas. Through iconic TV ads, by sponsoring first-class players like Eric Cantona, Ronaldo Nazario and Luís Figo and by getting contracts with national sides like Brazil and Portugal and clubs such as Barcelona, Borussia Dortmund and Arsenal, they became the hottest ticket in town. By the 2000/01 season, they moved to get more Champions League regulars to their portfolio, adding the likes of Manchester United and Leeds United, but also FC Porto.

The Dragons were part of European royalty, having taken part in all but two seasons of the Champions League and by dominating the Portuguese league for the past decade, so their relationship with Nike seemed like a match made in heaven. It didn’t start well, though. The first shirt presented by the American brand reversed the traditional blue and white vertical stripes, with three blue stripes instead of the usual two. It was a departure from an iconic template that had lasted since the 1950s and caused genuine uproar among the fan base. It was flashy, new, but broke from tradition. Porto losing the league to their city neighbours Boavista didn’t help endear the template to club members, but a year later, Nike decided to push the boundaries even further, surprising everyone.

Stripped of their stripes

Porto first kit 2001/2002 (Image: www.footballkitarchive.com)

Instead of respecting the traditional Porto stripes – which are consecrated in the club’s own foundational documents – Nike decided to apply the model that became extremely popular two years before in Barcelona, with a half-blue, half-white shirt, similar to the Blackburn Rovers design. The Barça shirt, used during the club’s centennial 1998/99 season, however, was a replica model of their first kit, while Porto had never played in their history with a similar template. It became clear Nike was more focused on their own football tradition than the club’s, and many supporters publicly dissed the shirt as going against the club’s longstanding identity.

The model had shoulders drawn with the opposite colour to simulate a waving flag movement, with the collar in dark blue, as was the company’s logo and the Revigrés sponsorship. The shorts were also more of a navy blue than the club was used to, as were the socks, which traditionally had been white. The half-and-half design was complemented on the back with a PT sponsorship above the player’s name and number, also in dark blue.

Porto second kit 2001/2002 (Image: www.footballkitarchive.com)

As for the away kit, as had happened the year before, Nike decided to bring back the grey version, used by Kappa in their final season, dropping the all-white and all-yellow templates of the previous campaign (a design identical to Leeds United) by focusing on an almost all silver shirt with a blue strip on one side that went from shoulder to waist, promoting a contrasting sleeve concept unheard off in Portuguese football at the time. The Revigrés sponsorship and the Nike Swoosh were also in dark blue, as were the player’s name and number on the back. The kit was mainly used in the Champions League rather than in the league, and, contrary to what happened the season prior, there was no third option available.

Initial backlash gives way to nostalgia

The backslash was huge at the beginning of the campaign, and as things started to go sideways on the pitch, the shirt became more associated as the kit used in some of Porto’s most disappointing matches of recent years. It was also a shirt made iconic by Jorge Costa’s early substitution in a home match against Vitória FC, that prompted the former Porto captain and legend to toss the captain’s armband into the ground, which in turn led him to be excluded from the squad and later loaned to Charlton for the second half of the season.

Porto managed to progress beyond the first group stage of the Champions League, but poor results in the league, meaning the club finished 2001 in fourth, trailing not only Sporting and Boavista but also União de Leiria, dictated Octávio Machado’s end. Artur Jorge’s former deputy, who had taken Sporting to a Super Cup trophy win, never connected with the crowd and his decision not to sign Mário Jardel, who was on his way to win his second Golden Boot with Sporting that season, made his presence at das Antas unbearable.

Kit ushers in glorious Mourinho era

But while the shirt became forever intertwined with Octávio´s short tenure – still regarded as one of the worst in the club´s history – it also associated itself with the arrival of José Mourinho. For five months, the coach born in Setúbal, like Octávio, tested the whole squad in different positions and using a range of tactics as if it were a casting campaign for the following season. Benny McCarthy’s late surge, after a loan deal was agreed with Celta Vigo in December, meant the club managed to hold on to third place in the end, beating both Benfica and Leiria, which meant a ticket for the UEFA Cup of the following campaign. It would be the beginning of Mourinho’s legend as a manager and of Porto’s revival.

Deco, here celebrating a goal against Marítimo, was a key protagonist under Mourinho as Porto prepared to embark on the most glorious spell in their history

Perhaps because of that or, simply, because football kits have evolved so much that there is not the same sort of emotional backlash nowadays as there had been in the past, the 2001/02 Porto home kit became a cult classic. One now sees hundreds of replicas at the Dragão stadium during match days, a shirt worn with pride and even a sense of nostalgia by the lucky few who bought it back in the day. It also became a collector’s item, one of the most sought-after Porto shirts in the world, proof that a football kit’s history doesn’t really end when the season is over.

It wouldn’t be surprising if, in the near future, the club touts a similar template again to capitalise on that feeling of nostalgia, but nothing is ever quite like the first time, and everyone will always remember the day when the Dragons ditched their stripes to dress up in a kit that planted the seed for the glorious days that followed.