The new Portuguese League season will see Benfica in a new home strip. This is a very nice football shirt in my opinion. It looks quite like an 80’s style football shirt, a very uncomplicated design with a nice big and bold collar around the neck. It is a predominantly red shirt with white trim and with the white three stripes going down the arms, part of the Adidas branding. Adidas are the manufacturers for many football jerseys these days and I think that this is one of their better efforts. I think it looks better than previous Benfica shirts as before their sponsor’s logo was bigger and I think it detracted from the design of the shirt itself.

Benfica did not have the best of seasons last time around, and finished third. Although this time they will be hoping for better things, and maybe the new home strip will give them a bit of luck to make to end up lifting the league trophy at the end of the season. They playe their home games in Lisbon at the Estadio Da Luz, a really nice and new stadium that hosted the final of Euro 2004.

Benfica have many star players that give them attacking options up the field, players like Reyes, Adu and veteran Nuno Gomes. Their squad is mainly Brazilian. If I had to choose a player to put on the back of my Benfica home shirt it would probably be a former played called Simao. I have enjoyed watching his trickery on the wing, he is a very loyal player and always seems to do well in the big games so I would go for him. Their head coach Jorge Jesus will be hoping that this shirt will help him to work miracles in lifting some form of silverware come the end of the 09-10 season.

Steve Aitken