AS Saint-Etienne 2005/06 Home *Brand New* (Large)

This shirt comes from the season Bafétimbi Gomis began turning one of football’s strangest celebrations into his personal signature.

After spending part of the previous campaign on loan at Troyes, Gomis returned to Saint-Étienne for 2005–06 and made 24 league appearances. He was still fighting to establish himself, but this was the season he scored his first Ligue 1 goals for the club. 

Whenever he scored, Gomis dropped onto all fours and crawled like a panther. The celebration was inspired by Saint-Étienne’s former striker Alex Dias, known as “The Panther” and eventually became so closely connected to Gomis that fans recognised the celebration before they recognised the shirt.

This was also Saint-Étienne’s first home design of their new Adidas period, replacing Duarig. Adidas kept the club’s traditional green but added sharp white panels, silver piping and the large Konica Minolta sponsor. Pure mid-2000s football-shirt chaos, in the best way. 

Gomis would properly explode the following season, but this shirt belongs to the chapter just before that: the young academy striker scoring his first top-flight goals and creating a celebration that would follow him for the rest of his career.

Finding one more than 20 years later still unworn, with the original Adidas tags attached, makes it feel less like an old replica and more like something preserved from the exact moment the Panther story began.