Love letter to River Plate's jersey Five jerseys help us to retrace the legend of the millonarios

The charm I feel for Club Atlético River Plate is something rare. It's a club for strong hearts, the one, in the rivalry with Boca Juniors, to were dramatically relegated in the second division - and because of this indelibly marked - and then, like a phoenix, risen from their ash and started one of the most glorious winning cycle in the history of South American football, ended with the victory of the second Copa Libertadores in a three years period, just against the eternal xeneizes rivals, in the very first Superclasico had in the last double final of the tournament. In short, a circle that closes.

For me, River Plate is Pablo Aimar, Gabriel Omar Batistuta, Javier Saviola, “El Burrito” Ortega or “El Príncipe” Enzo Francescoli. River Plate is mostly "La Banda", the transverse red stripe that separates the Argentinians' jersey from the left shoulder to the right hip, adopted for the first time in 1905 to distinguish themselves from the others club, which wore a simple white shirt just like them. It was the historical President Antonio Vespucio Liberti - after which the River stadium, El Monumental, located in the Núñez barrio, in Buenos Aires, is named - to consolidate the shirt with the diagonal red stripe, saying to the team that they would fight for it, because "it was the River Plate's jersey". Since then, the River's shirt has become a timeless icon, enough to dedicate to it a love letter. Let's retrace the story of the millonarios through five jerseys which have marked their way towards the legend.

Home, 1995/1996

The last Copa Libertadores of the team Campéon del Siglo, the swan song of a club capable of conquering almost everything in the second half of the 90s and to gift to the football world rising stars like Julio Cruz, Hernán Crespo and Ariel Ortega, to name the most important. In those years, River Plate were indomitables, and only Juventus were capable of stopping them in the Intercontinental Cup final in 1996. What about the shirt worn during all those victories? It was a hymn to tradition: a transversal red stripe, red and black details and an immaculate white background.