An ode to Boca’s iconic jersey Everyone loves the famous blue and yellow (except River fans...)

Adored the world over – except in the red and white half of Buenos Aires – Boca Juniors’ iconic strip is a thing of beauty. Our retro shirt specialist explains why

I’m an old romantic, which is probably why – while waxing lyrical about a shirt which couldn’t be closer to my heart – I find myself humming a song made famous by Roberta Flack. When it comes to this particular strip, however, I know I’m not alone. Well, about the shirt, anyway.

Boca Juniors is the Helen of Troy of football kits. The merest mention of those blue and yellow colours makes grown men wistful and incapable of rational thought. What other team’s jersey has launched a thousand imitations, or at least has an IKEA bag as homage? This is important not just for football’s cuddly, romantic side, but also the hard economics of keeping a club competitive and solvent. The Bombonera behemoth rank 74th in the world in Soccerex’s Football Finance Report and, according to Forbes Mexico, it is shirt sales and sponsorship deals with companies such as Nike, BBVA and Huawei which help to sustain the club’s success. The dictionary definition of iconic is ‘highly original, influential or unique’. Tick, tick, and tick. Look at the roll call of amazingly gifted and effortlessly cool former players: Diego Maradona, Gabriel Batistuta, Juan Roman Riquelme, Claudio Caniggia, Carlos Tevez. Just writing the list brings me out in a cold sweat. It’s hard to pinpoint how some clubs gain a certain mystique. Success is part of the allure, but at its root are legends, rituals and players. Boca Juniors have both romance and myth engrained from their very inception. They are

“The first time ever I saw your face, I thought the sun rose in your eyes”

most people’s ‘Argentine team’, and their kit plays no small part in that. Founded in 1905 by a group of Italian immigrants – hence the Xeneizes, or Genoese, nickname – who lived in Buenos Aires’ La Boca district at the mouth of the River Mantanza, the club’s history has a storyline as good as any Argentine telenovela. They use the English word ‘Juniors’ as a nod to the influence of British workers, many of them sailors, spreading the game around the globe at the turn of the 20th century. Boca initially played in various colours, most notably pink, baby blue or white with black pinstripes, the latter periodically recreated as a special release. The celebrated shirt we all know and love today came into being almost by accident. Presented with a kit clash ahead of a 1906 Buenos Aires derby against Nottingham de Almagro, legend has it that whoever won got to keep their colours. Boca were beaten and had to choose a new strip, but what? Several colours were put forward, but no consensus reached. To break the impasse, it was agreed that the new kit would be based on the national flag of the next ship to pull into port. The blue-and-yellow flag of Sweden hoved into view and a legend was born. Even then, the club played with a diagonal Peru-esque yellow sash until 1912, before the now famous horizontal central chest stripe became the norm the following year. Things floated on nicely until 1977, when the club took the daring step to ask pioneering Buenos Aires fashion designer Oscar Tubio – who would later introduce the half-and-half football shirt on an unsuspecting world – to design a commemorative shirt and badge for the Intercontinental Cup against Borussia Monchengladbach. Tubio certainly left his mark, introducing two-tone shirt numbers with players’ names on the back. Most indelibly, he reimagined the club’s CABJ acronym inside four stars just above the iconic yellow stripe. The new badge – no doubt helped by Boca’s 5-2 aggregate defeat of Monchengladbach – would adorn the swoon-inducing shirt for nearly a decade. That design is striking enough, but the fact it was also worn by Maradona while guiding the club to the 1981 Argentine Metropolitano title, the only domestic honour El Pibe de Oro ever won, has seared it into legendary status around the world. Throw in the now defunct (but equally iconic) Adidas Trefoil logo opposite, and three stripes on the arms, and you’ve got a shirt befitting Holy Grail status. In an era of few, if any, replica jersey sales, it’s no accident that if you Google ‘vintage Boca shirt’ – and who hasn’t? – there are more than a hundred such tops bearing Maradona’s name and No.10, which can be yours for just £40. Track down a genuine replica Boca shirt from the ’80s and it’ll leave a huge hole in your bank account – £200, even more for a rarer jersey – even if it wasn’t match-worn! It can’t be underestimated how important a part Maradona played in adding to Boca’s mythology, arms aloft beseeching the gods for victory. Their next ground-breaking, myth-enhancing change was initiated by then-boca chairman, now Argentina president, Mauricio Macri. It was he who, in 1995 brought in the revered shield-and-stars badge we adore today, seen in countless guises of snide streetwear, on a social media site or street corner near you. The same season, Nike caused uproar, when they introduced a thin white band above and below the iconic yellow stripe. Disgusted that something so sacrosanct could be fouled, the returning El Diego initially refused to wear it, admitting it belonged more to Michigan State than his beloved Boca. It lasted one season. Little has altered since, bar Nike tweaking the width and placement of the band in 1998 and 2000. For me, losing the scale and placement of the golden band lessens the shirt’s impact. Ultimately, however, it’s something off the pitch which manages to sum up all that is special and unique about this beloved club. The only place in the world that you will see a Black Coca Cola logo is at La Bombonera. In 2003, the American soft drinks giant was only allowed to become official sponsor of the stadium if it agreed to change the colour of its iconic logo. There was no way that Boca would allow the colours of their deadly Superclasico rivals River Plate to adorn their ground. With that, I can say no more.

THE DEFINITION OF ICONIC IS ‘HIGHLY ORIGINAL, INFLUENTIAL OR UNIQUE’. TICK, TICK, TICK