It is not often that a sporting figure has been better known for their kit than their ability, especially when they played on the biggest stage that their sport has to offer. Jorge Campos, during his time in goal for the Mexican national football team (130 caps from 1991 to 2004), did just this during the 1990s. As a 5' 8" goalscoring keeper there were certainly plenty of reasons why he caught the eye in his career.
At least four inches smaller than most goalies, he also managed to score 38 goals. Campos was signed in 1989 by Pumas UMAM as a goalkeeper, but Adolfo Rios was playing well in goal,so Campos was used as a striker and scored 14 goals in his first full season. But it was at the 1994 and 1998 World Cup finals where Campos caught, and dangerously dazzled, the eye with a serious of garishly luminous kits.
Campos, now 42, could not even blame his look on the kit manufacturers as he designed them himself. After swapping shirts with Campos at the end of a match at the 1994 World Cup, the Norwegian goalkeepr Erik Thorstvedt commented: "I've been looking for new kitchen curtains for a long time." The Guardian newspaper in the UK said of Campos that the "the word flambouyant was invented just for him."
sports@thenational.ae
