LALIGA’s Retro Matchday shows us nostalgia is fun
It’s easy to be dreary about the state of modern football. It is increasingly a disposable product, designed more and more to service the power of the algorithm than to capture the imagination.
But that doesn’t mean that good things can’t happen. LALIGA’s Retro Matchday seems like one of those good things.
The initiative will see both the Primera and Segunda divisions take to the pitch on the weekend of 10-13 April wearing specialised retro jerseys, as well as a raft of other on and off-the-pitch activations. Teams will also play with a special black and white edition of this season’s Puma ball. Barcelona, Getafe and Rayo Vallecano will participate in the festivities, but for various reasons couldn’t get a retro jersey into production in time. Real Madrid, on the other hand, have opted to not take part.
At Madrid Fashion Week, fans were treated to the official unveiling of the participating teams’ jerseys, as well as some surprise faces. Xabi Prieto – a San Sebastián native who spent his entire career at Real Sociedad – modelled their interpretation of the last kit they wore at the Atotxa, the club’s stadium for 80 years. Fernando Morientes wore the black jersey of Albacete, the club at which he began his career. Even the great Sid Lowe, perhaps the world’s most famous Spanish football journalist, together with his son, turned out for his beloved Real Oviedo.
It’s not retro, it’s roots
One of the most thoughtful designs came from Levante UD. The off-white tone and simple black band, crossing the chest, is a direct reference to Fúbtol Club Cabanyal, the precursor to Levante, founded in 1907.
El Cabanyal, the distinctive coastal neighbourhood of Valencia, is a largely working class community that was once the epicenter of the city’s maritime endeavours. Despite its modern incarnation as a destination for well-discerned tourists, its narrow streets remain characteristically vibrant and its history of seafaring has become a clear mark of identity.
Levante have tastefully and authentically honoured that tradition, in both the design and the storytelling – using the motto “No és retro, són raíces,” – it’s not retro, it’s roots.
Collective memory
Deportivo Alavés chose to mark LALIGA’s Retro Matchday occasion with a reimagination of the shirt they wore during arguably the club’s biggest ever occasion: the 2001 UEFA Cup final in Dortmund. Alavés lost the game 5-4 to Liverpool, in unquestionably one of the great European finals, but the “unforgettable night remains permanently etched in the collective memory of all Alavés fans,” read the club’s release statement.
You’ll find endless academic essays on the dangers of nostalgia: the rose-tinted glasses, the half-truths, the inability to progress forwards. But for a team like Alavés, who have spent the intervening years since that special season in relative obscurity, nostalgia offers a means of transportation.
That European campaign included wins at the San Siro, knocking Inter Milan out in the fourth round, and a 9-2 aggregate defeat of Bundesliga challengers Kaiserslautern. For the team from the Basque country, it is the high watermark of their 105-year history.
It has to mean something
The convention of releasing three – usually four – kits a season, with an anniversary motif or a commercial angle thrown in for good measure, is one of football’s most wasteful and corrosive habits. It has become an empty gesture in the cycle of the season. Few are appreciated by fans.
The decision of Athens Kallithea to roll last year’s trio of jerseys into this season was a welcome break from recent tradition.
And there’s no doubt that the enthusiasm for LALIGA’s Retro Matchday will soon wear off if, come next season, another round of jerseys will be all it brings to the table. But in giving clubs the chance to give back to supporters – even if just to evoke a distant memory – as well as showcasing the heritage of Spanish football to new audiences, the Retro Matchday is a standout example of a league doing something innovative to capture imaginations. We should celebrate it.
