Sporting Clube Ideal 2019/20 Home Shirt

A match worn shirt with waves inside it. In 2019/20, Ideal were playing the Campeonato de Portugal, the fourth year of their national era, and this shirt with the Kelme claw on its shoulders was in the thick of it: the 3 on the back belongs to a defender who made the journeys between islands and mainland in a season the pandemic would eventually cut short. The chest is a tourism campaign in fabric: Ribeira Grande, Capital do Surf, with a surfboard for a coat of arms and the word Azores down its middle, the postcard of São Miguel's north coast where Atlantic waves stage championships. On the back, above the number, the same Açores with a hydrangea for an O that the collection already knows from the Lusitânia shirt, the regional signature that makes these two pieces archipelago siblings. The bridge and the star on the crest, the Spanish claw on the sleeves, the municipality's website on the hem: island football playing in the national leagues with the whole homeland on its back. Of the collection's Azorean shirts, this is the one that sweated.