Sorry, this one – my 100th post – was quite a while in the making. Well, let’s say for private reasons, I was not able to actually blog over the past two weeks. But hopefully, I will keep up my regular posting schedule for the days to come.

So, for my 100th post, I wanted to look at a very special shirt and I guess, I got it: this is the second shirt I ever owned back in the early 1990s and one that I am very proud of to this day: the 1990/91 AC Milan home jersey. Back in those days, AC Milan was considered probably the best club side of the planet and one of the greatest of all time featuring the Dutch trio Gullit – Rijkaard – van Basten as well as Italian stars such as Donadoni, Baresi and a very young Maldini. The team has just one two consecutive European Cups (the precursor of today’s Champions League) – a feat that has not been done since. However, it all came to a rather scandalous end in 1991, when being a goal down in Marseille the team refused to continue to play the game after the lights went out in the Stade Velodrome. Consequently, the team was banned from all European competitions for one year.

After Milan had achieved all their triumphs in Kappa jerseys, the big name brand Adidas stepped in to get a share of the Milan glory and equipped the team for three years. Surprisingly by today’s standards and customs, the shirt remained virtually unchanged and had a very classic Milan look: red-and-black stripes of medium width with a black stripe running down the middle. The next section of black stripes contained the Adidas logo on the right and the gold star and the European Cup trophy on the left, signifying that Milan had one at least 10 Serie A titles (11 at the time) and were the defending European Cup champion. The latter was used by Milan only for their two European Cup wins in 1989 and 1990 and was sadly not picked up by other teams. These days, of course, UEFA created their own badge (worn on the sleeves) to mark the reigning Champions League winner, but it is rather un-classy and not as poignant as this version. Also, note that this shirt does not feature the club’s crest anywhere on the jersey. In fact, the now well-known AC Milan crest was not featured on the jersey until 1995.

The only really noticeable difference between the Adidas and the Kappa jersey is the front side of the collar. While the Kappa front was very open, Adidas used a (better) classic design by creating a black V-opening with a red trim. The shirt collar itself is a classic red and black collar which I wish Milan was still using. I also miss the Mediolanum sponsor. Not because I support Berlusconi’s empire (in fact the only positive aspect of Berlusconi in my opinion is the fact that he at least used to put money into a great team), but because Mediolanum is the Latin name of the city of Milan, thus creating a nice connection between city and club.

To me, this is the classic Milan shirt, especially the way the stripes are arranged on the jersey. It should be noted that the original AC Milan shirt had much thinner stripes which re-appeared here and there (last time during the 2011/12 season), but I do prefer the medium sized stripes. This look (with the exception of the collar) persisted for almost the entire 1990s until Adidas stepped in again and started issuing many variations of red-and-black striped jerseys, none of which really could capture this classic and simple design.

My rating: 10/10 stars.

How do you rate this shirt?