Story behind the shirt: Real Madrid at the 2002 Champions League final

On 15 May 2002, Zinedine Zidane received the ball on the left edge of the penalty area at Hampden Park, watched a Roberto Carlos cross drop toward him, and hit it. Left foot. On the volley. Into the top corner. The goalkeeper did not move. Nobody really could.

That goal, in the 45th minute of the Champions League final against Bayer Leverkusen, is the most replayed moment in the history of the competition. Real Madrid won 2-1. It was their ninth European Cup. And Real Madrid were wearing the centenary shirt when it happened.

The shirt

The 2001-02 season was Real Madrid's hundredth year as a club. adidas marked it with a shirt that kept the all-white template but introduced centenary details throughout: a gold centenary crest on the left chest, gold numbering, and subtle gold trim on the collar. The shirt is clean and restrained, which is exactly right for a club whose identity is built on white.

The version worn in the Champions League carried the UEFA badge on the sleeve. The centenary crest was specific to that season: a different design from the standard badge, used only while the hundredth anniversary was being marked. Once the season ended, it was gone.

The final

Real Madrid went ahead through Raúl in the eighth minute. Bayer Leverkusen equalised through Lucio six minutes later. Then, just before half-time, Roberto Carlos played a long diagonal ball into the left channel. It dropped out of the sky. Zidane came to meet it and struck it first time with his left foot — his weaker foot — into the far top corner.

It was his first Champions League title. He had won the World Cup in 1998, the European Championship in 2000, and the Ballon d'Or three times. The European Cup was the one thing missing. He got it on his centenary season, in the first year after joining from Juventus for a then world-record fee.

Leverkusen that year

The opponent matters to this story. Bayer Leverkusen's 2001-02 season was one of the most painful in German football history. They led the Bundesliga with three games left and lost it to Borussia Dortmund on the final day. They reached the DFB Pokal final and lost. They reached the Champions League final and lost. Three finals in one season, all of them lost. It earned the club a nickname they have been trying to escape ever since: Neverkusen.

Their team that night included Michael Ballack, Dimitar Berbatov and Lúcio. They were not a bad side. They just ran into Zidane at the right moment.

La Novena

Real Madrid's ninth European Cup completed what the club had been pursuing since their sixth in 1966. They had won the competition seven times in its first twelve years of existence, between 1956 and 1966, then waited 32 years for their seventh. Their eighth came in 2000, against Valencia. The ninth, two years later, came with a goal that gave the competition an image to define itself by.

The centenary shirt was worn for one season. It exists in the catalogue alongside the standard home and Champions League versions from that year, each a variation on the same white template, all connected to the same night at Hampden Park.