Vintage Sporting Lisbon shirts, from the 1980s

This page shows football shirts and jerseys from Sporting Lisbon from the 1980s. We show home, Stromp, away, and goalie jerseys, match worn (worn by players in a game, or prepared for a player who stayed in the bench or was not even called), as well as a few replica shirts, which were still not very common in these days.

In this time there were still no specific jersey number given to each individual player. At the start of each game, numbers 1 to 11 were distributed to the players, normally according to their position on the field. To identify a jersey becomes dependent on the information provided by its origin, usually the seller but sometimes it is a source close to the player. Knowing from each soccer game a certain shirt comes from is also useful if there are photos of the game available.

Match worn Sporting Lisbon jerseys from 1980/1981: Puma for the first time

Until 1980 Sporting shirts did not have an official brand maker. In 1981, still in the 1980/1981 season, Puma (which would be again the Sporting jersey supplier in the 21st Century), made for a brief time the Club's kits. After a while the traditional shirts with only the crest of the Club came back. At about the same time synthetic fabrics (nylon) started to replace the traditional cotton. Sponsors still did not make their appearance, which in Portugal happened later than in other European countries.

One of the big problems in assigning Sporting jerseys to a given season, as mentioned in the section dedicated to 1970s matchworn Sporting Clube de Portugal shirts, is that in the beginning of the 1980s there were jerseys with both the streamlined, stylised lion, probably machine-stitched, and crests with chubby lions apparently hand stitched. There are match worn jerseys, such as the one of Inacio in the game against Cosmos, and others (for instance, a Manoel Puma shirt with green collar, the photo is private and is not shown here), about which there is absolutely no doubt, but that look a lot more like the shirts worn by Sporting Clube de Portugal players in the mid-1970s.

Sporting Clube de Portugal

1980/81

MW home shirt, worn by Inácio, game against Cosmos 4 October 1980. However, the lion is characterisitic of the mid-70s, so this could have been identified as 1974/75, but the player confirmed the game.

Sporting Clube de Portugal

1980/1981

Match worn hooped kit

Sporting Clube de Portugal

1980/1981

Match worn home shirt, assigned to the great Captain Manuel Fernandes

With thanks to Mr. Fábio Soares

Sporting Clube de Portugal

1980/1981. Puma match worn jersey (private photo)

Sporting Clube de Portugal

1980/1981

Matchworn third shirt, player Inácio

With thanks to Mr. Nuno Ruivo

Sporting Clube de Portugal

1980/1981

Away jersey match worn by Bastos

With thanks to the player's son, Mr. Victor Bastos

Football shirts worn by Sporting Lisbon players in 1981/1982

In 1981 kits made by Puma coexisted with jerseys without brand. It is very likely that both cotton and synthetic fabrics were used. There was no sponsor.

Between 1981/82 and 1986/87, the Sporting Lisbon goalkeeper jerseys were made mostly by the German brand Uhlsport, market leader in this segment at the time.

Sporting Clube de Portugal

1981/1982, national champion, Cup winner

Puma match worn Sporting Lisbon kit, worn by Virgilio in the Cup final against Braga. Sporting won 4-0.

Sporting Clube de Portugal

1981/1982, national champion, Cup winner

Match worn home jersey, probably 1981

With thanks to Mr. Nuno Ruivo

The Sporting jersey in 1982/1983: Le Coq Sportif

This season Le Coq Sportif became the supplier of the Sporting Clube de Portugal football equipment, remaining until 1987/88 when it was replaced by Hummel. Le Coq Sortif made some of the Sporting jerseys most loved by the fans. These kits are almost unanimously considered classical, and they still endure in the memory of the Sporting supporters. This is true for the home jerseys, and also for the away shirts, either completely white or totally green. In this first year, however, the jerseys still had a very traditional design, with collars that were mostly round and looked a bit like some Sporting shirts of the late 1970s.

The match worn Sporting Lisbon jersey in 1983/1984

The Sporting Clube de Portugal kits of this season are normally eassy to identify, because they have a distinctive collar, different from the ones of other shirts that Le Coq Sportif made for Sporting. On the other hand, while most jerseys in this season were made of nylon, there are still some made of cotton. One should note that very often jerseys of one season are used in the following pre-season.

With Le Coq Sportif Sporting never had a sponsor on the jerseys, this started later only with Hummel.

There were already replica shirts for sale to the Sporting supporters.

Sporting Clube de Portugal

1983/1984

Replica Le Coq Sportif home jersey

With thanks to the blog maillots vintage

Sporting Clube de Portugal

1983/1984

Striped MW shirt

With thanks to Mr. Nuno Ruivo

Sporting Clube de Portugal

1983/1984

Le Coq Sportif away shirt match worn

With thanks to Mr. Nuno Ruivo

Jerseys worn in football matches by Sporting Lisbon players in 1984/1985

The identification of these away Sporting jerseys might have been problematic, because they have the collar tyical of the previous season. However, there are 1984/85 photos of exactly such kits, but not, as far as we know, from 1983/84. Furthermore the Manuel Fernandes jersey is sourced and the season is known.

Note that the shirts are practically equal, but one of them has the Sporting Lisbon Lion on the wrong side. Traditionally, the Club crest must be over the heart. Only jerseys from this season have the lion on the wrong side. Not all the shirts, only some of them: the two variants, right and left, coexisted

Sporting Clube de Portugal

1984/1985

Match worn Le Coq Sportif home soccer jersey, player Litos

Sporting Clube de Portugal

1984/1986

Sporting Lisbon Stromp Le Coq Sportif match worn shirt of Jaime Pacheco

Sporting Clube de Portugal

1984/1985

Away Le Coq Sportif MWS. Mythical.

With thanks to Joao SCP from Fórum SCP

Sporting Clube de Portugal

1984/1985

Away jersey worn by the Sporting Lisbon captain Manuel Fernandes

Sporting Clube de Portugal

1984/1985

Third kit, probably from the pre-season when more players entered in each game

The Sporting Clube de Portugal kits in the 1985/1986 season

The French sports firm Le Coq Sportif continued to supply Sporting Lisbon with magnificent jerseys. Simple, classic and modern at the same time, with the perfect collar, no publicity or sonsor: in a word, these jerseys are the definition of what a Sporting Clube de Portugal shirt should be.

The jerseys described as 1985/86 came with that information from the seller. Jerseys marked as e.g. 1985/87 are harder to assign and could be either season. Note that the type of lettering does not hel much, because different numbers were used in the same season and the same types of letter were used in different seasons.

Sporting Clube de Portugal

1985/1986

Le Coq Sportif shirt worn in match by Gabriel

Sporting Clube de Portugal

1985/1986

MWS home jersey

With thanks to Mr. Nuno Ruivo

Sporting Clube de Portugal

1985/1987

Traditional SCP kit, match worn

With thanks to Mr. Nuno Ruivo

Sporting Clube de Portugal

1985/1987

Matchworn kit

With thanks to Portal Sporting Memória for the info

Sporting Clube de Portugal

1985/1987 home jersey

Match worn

With thanks to Portal Sporting Memória for the info

Sporting Clube de Portugal

1985/1987

Match worn home jersey

With thanks to Portal Sporting Memória for the info

Sporting Clube de Portugal

1985/1987. Match worn goalkeeper Sporting Lisbon jersey, probably U21. Made by Uhlsport, worn by Sporting between 81/82 and 86/87.

Sporting Clube de Portugal Jerseys in 1986/1987: the end of the Le Coq Sportif era

This was the last year that Le Coq Sportif made the Sporting jersey. So ended one of the best pages of the history of the Sporting Lisbon kit. Later on other companies also made excellent jerseys, for instance with Adidas in the 1990s, or in the Sporting Lisbon Centennial year, and even the classic Sporting 2011 2012 jersey, but Le Coq Sportif conquered a special place in the history of the Sporting Lisbon soccer jersey.

Sporting Clube de Portugal

1986/1987, eventually 87/88 pre-season, before the new Hummel shirts arrived

Home kit match worn by Litos

With thanks to Portal Sporting Memória for the informations

Sporting Clube de Portugal

1986/1987 (probably)

Stromp match worn strip, player Manuel Fernandes

With thanks to Mr. Nuno Ruivo

The Sporting Lisbon jersey in 1987/1988: Hummel, and the sponsors

After Le Coq Sportif left, Hummel became the supplier of the official Sorting Lisbon shirt. Without much innovation, the Hummel kits are honest and simple, with a beautiful green. Only the tyical pattern along the sleeves stray from a pure green white hooped jersey.

The Stromp jersey is where Hummel did innovate, too much. Even if it actually looks good, it is outside the boundaries of what the most classic and noble Sporting Lisbon jersey should be.

Together with the change in supplier, sponsorhips made their appearance in the shirts. From this season on, it becomes easier to know exactly in which season a given jersey was worn, always taking into account that the pre-seasons almost always bring some surprises, and that Sporting Clube de Portugal had, along the years, very many jerseys that strayed from the norm.

The first sponsor was FNAC, the air conditioned company with no relationship with the French media retailer. This year's match worn Sporting Lisbon jerseys can be told apart from the following season's, where FNAC also was the sponsor due to the fabric rectangle in which the FNAC letters were inserted.

As for LCS, also Hummel replica jerseys were sold to the supporters. The quality of the fabric and the care of detail are very different from the match worn shirts. Replica jerseys are an important source of revenue for the Club, and have been sold in every season since.

One interesting note is that Sporting already had shirts with sponsorship in 1974/75, in a friendly game in France.

Different font types were used for the player numbers on the back of the jerseys.

Sporting Clube de Portugal

1987/1990

Without sponsor, that was at the time FNAC
then Nissan. The make (Hummel) is almost
gone due to use, with only small marks left

Sporting Clube de Portugal

1987/1990

No sponsor. The Hummel brand is on a green stripe, which is uncommon

Sporting Clube de Portugal

1987/1988

Match worn home shirt

Sporting Clube de Portugal

1987/1988

Matchworn by Oceano

With thanks to the blog maillots vintage

Sporting Clube de Portugal

1987/1988

Matchworn by Paulinho Cascavel

Sporting Clube de Portugal

1987/1988

Match worn (friendly against Forentina)

Sporting Clube de Portugal

1987/1988

Stromp match worn shit,
player Fernando Mendes

With thank to Mr. Nuno Ruivo

The Sporting Clube de Portugal shirt in 1988/1989

The jerseys as such remained the same as the previous year. The sponsor FNAC is also the same, but no longer on a rectangle. The player numbers are tyically different from the season before.

Sporting Clube de Portugal

1988/1989

Match worn by Venâncio

Sporting Clube de Portugal

1988/1989

Match worn by Eskilsson

With thanks to the blog maillots vintage

Sporting Clube de Portugal

1988/1989

Matchworn jersey player Carlos Xavier

With thanks to Mr. Nuno Ruivo

Sporting Clube de Portugal

1988/1989

Match worn by Silas

With thanks to Mr. Nuno Ruivo

The Sporting jersey in the 1989/1990 season: from FNAC to Nissan

Again the Sporting Lisbon match worn kit, supplied by the English company Hummel, remained essentially the same as that of the previous season. The diference is that the sponsor changed, this year it was the Japanes car maker Nissan.

The away Sporting Lisbon jersey was completely white. In fact, the traditional Sporting away shirts are either comletely green or comletley white. Only at the end of 1990s they started to change, with the multi-colored Sporting Lisbon away jerseys.

Sporting Clube de Portugal

1989/1990

Match worn by Venâncio

With thanks to Mr. Nuno Ruivo

Sporting Clube de Portugal

1989/1990

Match worn by Douglas

With thanks to IS

Sporting Clube de Portugal

1989/1990

Player issue

With thank to IS

Sporting Clube de Portugal

1989/1990

Player issue; the number on the back was removed before being offered to the Vitesse (Holland) kit manager in November 1990

Sporting Clube de Portugal

1989/1990

Away shirt worn in game by Venâncio

With thanks to Mr. Nuno Ruivo

Click here to see all the Sporting Lisbon jerseys from the 1990s.