Best Bundesliga Retro Shirts Ever Made (Ranked)

This away kit belongs to Hamburg's 2007/8 season, a year that brought a fourth place league finish, the Intertoto Cup and a run to the last sixteen of the UEFA Cup for Hamburger SV. The black base with blue and white geometric panels is a world away from Hamburg's usual white home look, and the Fly Emirates sponsor places it squarely in the late 2000s.

Rafael van der Vaart wore this shirt during his two years in Hamburg between Ajax and Real Madrid, a stretch of his career that gets far less attention than either of those clubs. A shirt for collectors who want van der Vaart outside the more common Ajax and Netherlands versions.

This shirt covers a season that brought a Champions League clash with Real Madrid and a close run at the Bundesliga title, the kind of double billing that defined Bayern München's early 2000s. Bayern finished second that year, six points behind champions Werder Bremen. The bold red base with white Adidas stripes is one of the more recognisable templates of the era, and it sits cleanly between the club's design shifts either side of it.

Michael Ballack was a key figure in the side that season, two years before his move to Chelsea, playing alongside a Bayern defence still marshalled by Oliver Kahn.

This is the long sleeve version of Bayern's 1992/93 home shirt. Bayern finished second in the Bundesliga that season under Erich Ribbeck, and the red base with bold blue and white geometric shoulder detailing is one of the cleanest examples of the club's early 1990s look.

The Opel sponsor sat on Bayern shirts for the better part of two decades, and this is one of the earlier versions of that partnership still findable in decent condition.

The home version of the same 2007/8 Hamburg season, in the club's traditional white with fine red pinstripes. Rafael van der Vaart wore this shirt regularly during his two seasons in Hamburg, between his time at Ajax and his move to Real Madrid.

Hamburg's Fly Emirates sponsorship and Adidas construction make this an easy shirt to date, and it pairs naturally with the away version above if you are building out a full season.

This shirt covers Bayern's 1995/96 UEFA Cup win and the Bundesliga title that followed a season later, one of the stronger two year runs the club produced in the 1990s. The blue and red vertical stripes with the Opel sponsor are one of the more distinctive Adidas templates of the decade.

Lothar Matthäus captained the side through both trophies after returning to Bayern in the mid 1990s, playing alongside Jürgen Klinsmann in a side few players carry as much history with as he does.

Bayern finished second in the Bundesliga in 1997/8 but still walked away with the DFB Pokal and the DFB Ligapokal, a reminder that a runner up season in Germany can still deliver silverware. This away shirt, with its white base, tonal diamond pattern and bold red and blue central band, is one of the more unusual Adidas designs Bayern wore in the late 1990s.

The Opel sponsor and black Adidas shoulder stripes date it precisely, and the design stands apart from both the Bayern shirts before and after it.

This long sleeve away shirt was worn during Dortmund's 1995/96 Bundesliga title win, including a 3 to 1 victory over Bayern München that season. Matthias Sammer, who would go on to win the Ballon d'Or in 1996, led the side from central defence in a shirt that looked as sharp on European nights as it did at the Westfalenstadion.

Away and long sleeve shirts from this exact season are harder to find in good condition than the home version, which makes this one of the more collectible pieces from Dortmund's mid 1990s run.

Bayern finished second in the Bundesliga in 1992/93 under Erich Ribbeck, missing the title by a single point. It is not a trophy shirt, but that is part of why it belongs here: this red home kit with its bold blue and red geometric shoulder detailing is one of the cleanest examples of Bayern's early 1990s look, from a period before the club's design language shifted through the Klinsmann and Matthäus years.

The Opel sponsor sat on Bayern shirts for the better part of two decades, and this is one of the earliest versions of that partnership still findable in decent condition.

This is the shirt Dortmund wore to the second of back to back Bundesliga titles in the mid 1990s, under a side built around Matthias Sammer and Andreas Möller. The Die Continentale sponsor across the chest and the neon yellow base with black shoulder panels are as close to a definitive Bundesliga shirt as German football produced that decade.

Everything on this list connects back to this era in some way: the away version at number 4, from the same title winning campaign, the Champions League winning follow up at number 1, even the Bayern shirts that spent the mid 1990s chasing this exact Borussia Dortmund side.

This is the shirt from Dortmund's 1996/97 campaign, the season that ended with the club's first and so far only Champions League title, a 3 to 1 win over Juventus in Munich with two goals from Karl Heinz Riedle and a third from a young Lars Ricken. Bayern took the Bundesliga title that year, which makes this a European trophy shirt rather than a domestic one, worth knowing before you read it the other way.

Matthias Sammer and Andreas Möller led a Dortmund side that punched well above its usual weight in Europe that season, and the neon yellow and black design is instantly recognisable as the era that built the club's modern identity. If you are only adding one shirt from this list, this is the one that defines it.