It may be the most distinctive kit in world football.
Real Madrid’s all-white outfit is what gives them their ‘Los Blancos’ nickname and explains why they were dubbed ‘Los Merengues’ (the Meringues) by one radio commentator. They have won all but two of their record 14 European Cup/Champions League titles wearing it — including the first five in a row from 1956-1960.
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It inspired Leeds United to wear white and is as iconic as Brazil’s yellow or the New Zealand rugby union team’s black. Adidas has made Madrid’s shirts since 1998 and, five years ago, signed an extension until 2028 reportedly worth €1.1billion ($1.2bn; £937million at current exchange rates), making it the world’s biggest such deal.
But differing theories colour the kit’s origins. The story of how Madrid ended up wearing all white is one that navigates fact and fiction.
The most popular theory about Madrid’s shirt involves the London-based Corinthian FC. Formed in 1882, they were a touring side of amateur players who wore white shirts and gained widespread fame for their values and style of play. They beat Manchester United 11-3 in 1904 and visited countries including South Africa, the United States and Brazil — where a group of Sao Paulo railway workers founded a team in their honour called Corinthians in 1910.
Real Madrid were established in 1902 as Madrid Football Club. One of their first players and managers was the Dublin-born Arthur Johnson, who had a key role in the club’s beginnings. The story goes that Johnson saw Corinthian FC play at the Oval, their occasional home ground and an England cricket venue in south London, inspiring him to pick white for his new side in the Spanish capital.
While there is no known record of him attending a game, Johnson would almost certainly have been aware of the amateur team’s impact and ideals. Dom Bliss, the head of media and heritage at Corinthian-Casuals — Corinthian FC’s successors, who play in English football’s non-League system — says it is “very likely” he would have been inspired by their example, even if he did not attend a match.
“They would have been the celebrity football team,” Bliss says. “Anyone who had been to see them play would have been wowed because Corinthian FC were the team that had this grandeur and confidence. They used to walk out with a swagger.”
The first images of Madrid show them wearing white shirts with dark sashes and long dark trousers. Alfredo Relano, former editor-in-chief of Spanish daily sports newspaper AS, has a different explanation for why they started playing in white.
“When football began to be played, teams would just wear what they were wearing underneath their everyday clothes,” says Relano. “This was usually white long johns that went down to their knees and a white undershirt.
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“The older and more established side between the two teams would in this way wear all white, while their opponents would add a horizontal red or blue sash to differentiate themselves.
“When normal kit arrived from England, Madrid decided to continue wearing white.”
Relano thinks there is confusion because of another link to Corinthian FC. In 1925, Madrid embarked on a tour of England and two of their players, Felix Quesada and Perico Escobal, went to see the amateur team play. When they returned to Spain, they lobbied club president Pedro Parages to change their white shorts to black in tribute to the Corinthians. A series of defeats, including a 5-1 defeat to arch-rivals Barcelona in the Copa del Rey, ensured they returned to white the following season.
The team that dominated the European Cup’s early seasons gave the white kit new mythology. Madrid had previously played with navy socks, but they switched to white for the competition’s inaugural 1955-56 tournament to be more visible during night-time games.
Chris Stride, a University of Sheffield academic who has researched the psychology of nostalgia, believes the visual effect, in black and white TV footage, added to the legend.
“It creates this nostalgic image of these ghosts running around under the floodlights in white shirts outplaying all the other teams around Europe,” he says.
📺⏮ En 1960 vencimos al @eintracht_esp por 7 a 3 en Glasgow y logramos así ¡nuestra QUINTA Copa de Europa consecutiva!
Una de las mejores exhibiciones en la historia del fútbol. #RMFansEnCasa | #YoMeQuedoEnCasa pic.twitter.com/UYYjz1E8hr— Real Madrid C.F. (@realmadrid) March 20, 2020
One person taken in by that ghostly image was the future Leeds manager Don Revie. He saw Madrid beat Eintracht Frankfurt 7-3 at Glasgow’s Hampden Park in the 1960 final with four goals from Ferenc Puskas and a hat-trick from Alfredo Di Stefano.
Revie’s friend and artist Paul Trevillion says that moved Revie to change Leeds’ navy shirts to white in 1961 to make his new Second Division team the ‘Real Madrid of British football’. Trevillion compares the shirt’s effect to a portrait he drew of the former British prime minister Winston Churchill, in which he added a white speck to his eyes to give them a “sparkle”.
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“That’s what Revie saw when he saw Real Madrid — he saw them come alive,” he says. “They were bigger than life. Not my words, Revie’s. (He said) ‘It was breathtaking, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It was football from the gods — I’d love my team to play like that’.”
Revie was in charge for 13 years, helping Leeds back to the First Division three years after his appointment and claiming two top-flight titles along with the 1972 FA Cup. Trevillion was brought in to provide the club with fresh ideas just before the FA Cup-winning season — but Revie pushed back when he suggested adding a blue cross to the front of Leeds’ shirt.
“He wouldn’t change it,” says Trevillion, 90. “I tried for two or three weeks to change his mind, it was always the same answer: ‘I’m not changing the strip — it’s all white, Paul!’. At one point I suggested blue cuffs and he said no.”
Madrid’s first defeat in a European Cup final was a 5-3 reverse to Benfica in 1962 in which they wore a purple away strip. When Liverpool beat them 1-0 in the 1981 final in Paris, Relano says some fans attributed it to Madrid wearing the Adidas logo and three stripes on their sleeves for the first time. But they have lifted the trophy twice while not wearing white — they won the 2000 final against Valencia in black and beat Juventus while wearing purple in 2017.
The shirt has become more and more lucrative as it has been commercialised. The Italian home appliances company Zanussi became the club’s first front-of-shirt sponsor in 1982 and this season Madrid started to wear the logo of technology giant HP on their sleeves — another first. According to UEFA, only arch-rivals Barcelona made more than their €155million in kit and merchandising revenues last year.
Some are unconvinced by the mythology around the white shirt and put its success down to Madrid’s trophies and the stars they have signed. “If Madrid had started out playing in red, the most-sold colour would be red,” says Juan Manuel Martinez, a director at Kelme, the Spanish sportswear brand that made Madrid’s shirts from 1994-1998.
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But others say that simplicity makes a difference. “There aren’t many clubs that use white as a primary colour on their home kit,” says Marcus Dilley, a former Adidas designer. “Those that do usually have a consistent design feature — such as River Plate in Argentina. It’s instantly recognisable no matter the accent colour used because of the combination between simple white and their iconic crest.”
Madrid’s deal with Adidas means they have appeared in different colours when playing at home. In March, Athletic Bilbao played in white at the Santiago Bernabeu as Madrid wore purple to promote a fourth kit devised by the Japanese designer Yohji Yamamoto.
But for longstanding Madrid fans such as Relano, the new shirts will never compare to the original all-white kit worn by Puskas, Di Stefano and the all-conquering team from the 1950s.
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“It’s not as magical as when that sensational Madrid won the first five European Cups during the first night-time matches, with the black-and-white highlights that were seen across Europe for very few minutes at a time,” Relano, 73, says.
“Now it has adverts on, there are close-ups on TV, all that takes away from its mystery. But it’s still iconic, just as the name of Real Madrid and some of the players who feature for them are.”
(Top photos: Getty Images)
