Retro Leganés Shirt – Honour the Cucumbers of Madrid

Club Deportivo Leganés was officially founded in 1928, though football had been played informally in the municipality long before that. For decades, the club was a fixture of the lower reaches of Spanish football – the Tercera División, the Segunda División B – familiar territory for a provincial club operating with modest resources in a city more closely associated with industry than football glamour. Yet the club's identity grew stronger with every passing decade, rooted in the community of a working-class city that has grown into the fourth most populous municipality in the entire Community of Madrid, home to over 190,000 people.

The path to the top flight was long and winding. Leganés spent many seasons yo-yoing between the third and fourth tiers, occasionally threatening a breakthrough without ever fully delivering one. The club reached the Segunda División – Spain's second tier – multiple times, tantalising supporters with near-misses before heartbreaking collapses. The modern era, however, would change everything.

Under the astute management of Asier Garitano, Leganés completed a remarkable back-to-back promotion in 2015 and 2016, earning their first-ever place in La Liga's top flight in the 2016–17 season. It was a seismic moment for the club and its fans. Estadio Municipal de Butarque, a compact and intimate ground holding around 11,000 supporters, suddenly hosted Primera División football for the first time in its history.

Leganés didn't just survive in La Liga – they thrived, finishing mid-table in their first season and consolidating their position. The 2018–19 Copa del Rey campaign remains perhaps the club's greatest achievement: Los Pepineros reached the semi-finals, defeating Real Madrid in the quarter-finals at the Bernabéu in a result that stunned all of Spain. They ultimately fell to Valencia in the last four, but the run captured the imagination of the entire country.

Relocation came cruelly in 2020 when Leganés were relegated from La Liga on the final day of the season after four consecutive years in the top flight. The fight to return to the big stage continues, but the memories of those glory years live on in every retro Leganés shirt that celebrates this remarkable little club's finest hours.

Leganés may never have been a destination for the world's biggest stars, but they have produced and showcased players who went on to make significant marks on Spanish and international football. The club's La Liga years attracted a calibre of player that would have been unthinkable just a decade earlier.

Youssef En-Nesyri is perhaps the most celebrated player to have worn the blue and white stripes. The Moroccan striker arrived at Butarque in 2017 and developed into a genuinely dangerous forward, earning a big-money move to Sevilla and going on to represent Morocco at the highest international level, including the 2022 World Cup semi-finals. His development at Leganés is a source of immense pride for the club.

Oscar Rodriguez was another standout – a technically gifted midfielder on loan from Real Madrid who dazzled with his range of passing and composed performances, later moving to Sevilla and establishing himself in La Liga.

Vice-captain and club stalwart Martin Braithwaite gave Leganés real aerial presence and work-rate before securing a high-profile move to FC Barcelona in 2020, making him one of the very few Leganés players to cross the city divide to one of world football's elite clubs – a remarkable story in itself.

In terms of managers, Asier Garitano deserves special recognition for masterminding the consecutive promotions and stabilising Leganés in La Liga. His successor Mauricio Pellegrino kept the ship steady before Javier Aguirre took charge, bringing extensive top-flight experience to Butarque. Each manager added their chapter to the club's ongoing story.

The Leganés retro shirt collection is a celebration of classic blue and white stripes – the colours that have defined Los Pepineros throughout their history. The club's traditional blue and white vertical stripes have remained a constant, giving the shirts an immediately recognisable identity that connects every era of the club's existence.

During the lower-division decades, the kits carried the simple elegance of a club that knew exactly what it was: proud, local, and unpretentious. The shirts of the 1980s and 1990s reflected the design trends of their time – bolder patterns, synthetic fabrics replacing cotton, and a gradual introduction of sponsorship that spoke to the club's growing commercial ambitions.

The La Liga era shirts from 2016 to 2020 are the most collectible in the club's history. These are the kits worn during Leganés' greatest moments: the first-ever top-flight seasons and that extraordinary Copa del Rey run. The 2018–19 home shirt, worn during the stunning victory over Real Madrid, has become the holy grail for serious collectors of the retro Leganés shirt. Paired with the away and third kits of those seasons, they form an iconic set that tells the story of a club punching far above its weight.