Dimitar Berbatov has admitted he didn’t generally like the shirts that Tottenham wore during his time at the club, although there was one that did stand out as ‘special’.
Arriving in London in 2006, Berbatov joined Spurs shortly after they missed out on the Champions League and was part of the side that upwardly changed expectations after predominantly being a mid-table club for the previous 15 years.
The Bulgarian cost almost £11m from Bayer Leverkusen and scored 23 goals in all competitions in each of his two seasons at White Hart Lane, before being sold to Manchester United for close to triple the transfer fee he had originally been bought for.
But Berbatov, who has a reputation for style – and with that, honesty about what he does and doesn’t like, wasn’t a fan of most of the kits he played in at Tottenham.
“Ugly shirts,” he told BT Sport’s What I Wore, holding up a Spurs home jersey from 2006/07.
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“I was saying this to everybody when I was playing at [all] my teams, ‘Who is designing this shirt?! Who is designing our suits? I don’t like them. Put me in charge!’
“The white, in my mind, is okay,” he continued.
The one Spurs shirt he did appear to have a soft spot for is the brown and gold number that was a third strip used during the 2006/07 season.
“It is dark with some gold elements. It’s a bit like, ‘okay, we’re here, we represent, we want to feel special’,” Berbatov said of the jersey.
Now 42 and retired since 2018 after winding down his career with spells in Greece and India, Berbatov remains part of the last Spurs team to win a major trophy when, under the guidance of Juande Ramos, they lifted the League Cup in 2008.
Berbatov himself scored the penalty at Wembley against Chelsea, who would finish that season in the Champions League, to send the game to extra-time. It was then eventually won in the added period by a Jonathan Woodgate goal.
“We were the underdogs and everybody probably expected us to lose because Chelsea had [Michael] Ballack, [Didier] Drogba, [John] Terry, and [Frank] Lampard, and [Petr] Cech in goal,” Berbatov explained.
“But, at the same time, I was confident in myself and thought the team had confidence as well. We won in the end. It’s not about the shirt at the end of the day, but if you win a trophy, you want to look good…when you lift the cup. Not as much back in the day, but now it’s even more of a trend because I can see the new suits, the shirt, everything. Not many people used to pay attention.”
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