Portuguese Perpetual Calendar Edition Luis Figo

His name has been synonymous with the finest football artistry for almost 20 years, and Luis Filipe Madeira Caeiro Figo, to give him his full name, already stood out clearly from the crowd as a youth. He was a member of the Portuguese national junior team which won the World Cup title in 1989, and in the same year, even as a 17-year-old, he played in the first team of his home club Sporting Lisbon for the Portuguese Championship. Since then, it has no longer been possible to imagine the large stage of international football without Figo. He has won numerous national and European titles with his clubs Sporting Lisbon, FC Barcelona, Real Madrid and his current club Inter Milan. Spanish superstar Raul has this to say about his former teammate at Real: "Figo is an exceptional player. His qualities as a footballer are very impressive."

In his home country, the footballer is worshipped by his fans as a god amongst wingers and is placed on the same level as Portugal's legend Eusebio. After all, with 127 appearances in the national team, Figo is the record-holding Portuguese national player, and he has long been a member of the exclusive "FIFA 100" club. After the 2000 European Cup in Belgium and the Netherlands, Luis Figo was named the best player of the tournament and European Footballer of the Year, and a year later he went on to become the World Footballer of the Year. The superstar collected these major awards because, among other things, he always took to heart the advice of the trainer of his youth team at Sporting Lisbon: "The really great players are those who let their teammates shine."

Even the wrist of the footballer, who is wellknown as a great watch lover, will be eye-catching in the future; to this ambassador, IWC Schaffhausen is dedicating his own watch. Luis Figo might have a flair for beautiful watches, but he has also demonstrated a place in his heart for children as he has proven with the establishment of the Luis Figo Foundation, which since 2003 has supported needy school children, young people and socially deprived families. As a token of its respect for this social commitment, IWC is marking the launch of the watch with a voluntary donation to the benefit of his foundation.

A top model from the Portuguese collection is ideally suited to the top star of Portuguese football. Figo himself chose the "Perpetual Calendar" because he considers it to be "the most beautiful Portuguese watch", and for good measure he enthuses about the complexity of its functions. The perpetual calendar from IWC displays the date, weekday, month and the year in four digits and is programmed mechanically until the year 2499. It also includes a perpetual moon phase display, the mechanism of which works so precisely that it will deviate from the actual orbital position of the moon by only a single day in 577 years, and at the same time it shows the phases of the moon for both the northern and the southern hemispheres.

The complicated IWC-manufactured movement is housed in a refined rose gold case with an understated elegance in accordance with the tradition of the Portuguese watches, which has been fostered by IWC since 1939. The discreet signature of the football star on the dial next to the "4 o'clock" position and its exclusive status as a limited edition make the "Portuguese Perpetual Calendar Edition Luis Figo" a collector's piece. Only 50 watches will be sold throughout the world. A glance through the sapphire glass back also leaves no doubt that we are concerned here with a special watch. The name Luis Figo appears on the rotor of the automatic winding mechanism, and the number 7 is engraved on the integral gold medallion. This number also adorned the shirt of the former Portuguese team captain.