The sacrilege of the three stripes, or when Adidas convinced Real Madrid to 'stain' the shirt

When that May 27, 1981, Madrid took the field to face Liverpool in Paris, the solid Madridista frowned.

The stark white uniform had been altered with three purple stripes running down the sleeves, from collar to cuff.

The same three stripes ran vertically down the panties and horizontally around the hem of the stockings.

Madrid returned that day to the final of the European Cup, which they had not stepped on since 1966, when the ye-yés.

Now it was the Madrid of

clearly inferior in play and in players to that Liverpool they were going to face.

Madrid's trick was the legend, the ancestors, the evoked images of the Marquitos, Zárraga, Di Stéfano, Puskas, Gento, Amancio, Pirri, Velázquez... Always in pure white, only altered by the shield in the heart and the number in the back.

But Adidas had convinced Madrid to lend itself just the day it returned to a final, which was the XXV edition and in Paris.

We were in the midst of a fratricidal war between Adidas and Puma, and I say fratricidal because it really was.

Adolf and Rudolf Dassler were the sons of a cobbler from Herzogenaurach in Bavaria.

They fought side by side on the Belgian front in the Great War, came back defeated and started making trainers and sports shoes.

Adolf was the one from the workshop, Rudolf, the salesman.

Adolf devised the spike shoes that helped Owens win the Berlin Olympics.

During the new war the factory was expropriated for military purposes.

They left Adolf in command, Rudolf went to the Eastern front.

That separated them.

Adolf created his own brand with the first letters of his name (in diminutive) and his last name: Adidas.

He devised the replaceable studs that helped Germany win the 1954 final. Rudolf countered with

, which he would soon trade for Puma.

Both companies in Herzogenaurach, each on one side of the river.

Half the town worked for one, half for the other.

The rivalry, fierce, seized the entire community and has been sustained for three generations.

Each one with its symbols: Adidas, with its clover and its three stripes: Puma, with its puma, its wake and its wide stripe on the sleeve.

Adidas had been hanging around Luis de Carlos, Bernabéu's successor at the helm of the club, for some time, very concerned about debts.

Already in the assembly of the summer of 1980 he raised the possibility of opening the uniform to sponsorship, but faced with the visible rejection he preferred not to put it to a vote.

Then at Christmas 1980, the brand awarded Madrid as the best club of the year, for its national League and Cup double, a title won in the final against Castilla.

I was in Paris and I remember very well the aaaahhh!

of disappointment among the madridistas when they realized when, after the hubbub at the start, the groups posed.

The novelty included a white tracksuit, instead of the classic blue.

Someone next to me commented that the masseur Luisito Velerda (very popular, like his predecessors Legido and Benedicto), looked like an ice cream man.

That this was not serious.

The clover on the chest was not going, because UEFA prohibited advertising claims to the point that Liverpool had to cover Umbro's fly with tape.

But the three stripes worked as a design.

The game was bad.

Three starting defenders were missing and Boskov brought out a very depleted Stielike and Cunningham.

The game was thick.

Madrid, very close, had only one chance, which escaped Camacho, when he chased a pass into the clear and pumped long over Clemence's exit.

Very close to the end, a throw-in close to the Madrid area, the ball that bounced strangely in the whitewash of the area's side line, a kick into the air by García Cortés' bad leg, a left-hander who had to play to the right, and a goal from side Alan Kennedy, the bad guy of the two brothers.

In the depressing atmosphere that followed, it was easy to curse the publicity.

For many, something holy had been given on a holy day for thirty silver coins.

The payment was 17 million pesetas, in a budget of 1,076, of which 125 went to Castilla.

Cunningham had cost 195.

Since then, Madrid has always had

.

In 1986 he went to Hummel, in 1994 to Kelme and in 1998 he returned to Adidas, with which he continues to this day.

Now it puts 100 million euros, a seventh of the budget.

Someday it had to start.

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