It only takes a glance to know this isn’t a normal Portugal kit. No red, no green, no white. Just black, trimmed in gold, with the number 13 prominently displayed. It looks like it came from a different era. It’s supposed to.
PUMA’s new Pantera Negra jersey is a tribute to Eusébio, Portugal’s first footballing icon. Sixty years after he won the Ballon d’Or, the Portuguese national team will take the field for one night only wearing a kit that breaks every visual rule they usually follow. For a team whose identity is wrapped up in color, that absence is the point.
Black and gold isn’t just a palette. It’s a frame. The black invokes Eusébio’s nickname, the Black Panther. The gold calls out his once-unthinkable excellence. Together, they cast Portugal’s 2025 team in silhouette, letting a ghost take center stage.
But what makes this kit different isn’t just aesthetics. It’s the tone. It doesn’t trade on throwback novelty or wink at retro design like so many commemorative shirts. It isn’t built for resale. It isn’t trying to be cool. It tries to be solemn. It asks the players who wear it to disappear a little. And it reminds a country that its most mythic player was born in Mozambique and changed everything.
This isn’t Portugal chasing a trend. It’s them choosing reverence.
Compare this with the viral energy around Nigeria’s 2018 World Cup kit, or the sleek vintage polish of France’s centenary shirt. Those kits became cultural moments, but they were made to be seen. The Pantera Negra kit is made to be felt. There’s no color to show off, no name set in the collar. The number 13, Eusébio’s, is preprinted. It’s not about individual choice. It’s about submission to memory.
That’s not to say it isn’t beautiful. It is. The embossed shields across the chest evoke the federation’s pre-1966 crest. The collar and sleeves carry the red and green trim of the national flag. The materials are recycled, the silhouette sharp. But none of that draws attention away from what’s central: a nation wearing black, not for mourning, but for awe.
The tribute jersey will be worn for one match, against Armenia on November 16 in Porto. Only 1,965 authentic editions have been produced, referencing the year Eusébio won the Ballon d’Or. The kit arrives boxed with his signature and biography. Most fans will never hold one.
That’s part of the point. Scarcity here isn’t a marketing tool. It’s a line drawn between the everyday and the sacred. The price ($270 USD) makes it clear this is a museum piece as much as a kit. And the overwhelming consensus—from fans, from media, even from Eusébio’s family—is that the moment deserves it.
If Portugal wanted to reassert its football identity, it wouldn’t do it in black. This isn’t a rebrand. It’s a ritual. An elegant interruption. A one-night transformation into something older than Cristiano and newer than nostalgia.
Because for all of Ronaldo’s greatness, Portugal’s soul still belongs to a striker who played like a storm and moved like a whisper. That’s what this kit honors. Not history. Legacy.
