In the past, I did at times post this FIFA map to give you a rundown of the status quo of my collection. Now, that I am finished, I decided to give you some of these stats again, before I will recollect how my mission went and ended. The stats are "quite up to date" here. They reflect basically my collection at the end of 2024, when I decided and started to photograph the almost 300 shirts that I never uploaded and added them all to this blog. Since, a few shirts have arrived at my house, maybe 20 in total. I will have to upload them later and will try to do a more regular status update, too, in future.
Stats
My collection does now consist of 758 shirts: 222 matchworn shirts, 33 player versions and 502 replicas. These shirts were once manufactured by 171 companies and include 135 Adidas shirts, 80 Puma shirts, 58 Nike shirts, 31 Umbro shirts, 21 Lotto and Macron shirts each and 20 Jako shirts.
From all my shirts, 150 were actually made in China, 109 in Thailand, 56 in Vietnam, 21 in Portugal and 19 in Indonesia.
I do have shirts from all 211 FIFA members, but also from 89 non-FIFA nations and 4 nations that once were a member of FIFA. 304 nations covered in total.
I have matchworn shirts from 148 of these nations - and from 18 more I at least a player issue shirt. I did not seperate between the two in the map above, but from the dark green countries I have matchworn shirts and from the others I don't, as of now.
15 years of collecting national team
I got my first (fake) obscure national team shirts for the World Cup 2006 in Germany: Togo and Ecuador. I don't even know why exactly - I mostly just loved the designs. I never thought about it again, until I found the blogs of Nick, Eric and Joe around 2011 then and stupidly dropped Nick a message to basically ask him for advise. A few days later, a Guatemala shirt arrived at my place, the first in this collection. Again a few days later, I had this blog set up and started to share my growing collection with the world. But really, that is just the surface of it.
The reason I fell in love with this hobby is probably not football, not geography and certainly not polyester. It is the weird and fun mix of it - and the massive social aspect surrounding it. Over they years, I have met Nick and Joe in the UK, Eric in Canada and Gregorio, Andy, Chris, Jens and numerous other collectors in Germany. I also met national team players in Germany, Egypt or Zimbabwe, FA staff from Mauritius at a FIFA General Meeting or journalists in Macedonia. I literally made almost 100 contacts through this hobby that I met in person at least once - and thousands that I often talked to for years. People from all around the world, really, and all walks of life. I tried Lesotho national team players to find a club in Europe and sold on Syria shirts to other collectors when a Romanian coach got stuck in the civil war and desperately needed funds. I just made incredible experiences through this journey directly and even more indirectly. And I love every bit of it.
Speaking of the indirect connections I made, I have to mention CONIFA here. I really heard about non-FIFA football through collecting shirts. I went to an annual meeting of the NF-Board to pick up a Kurdistan shirt, mostly. When the NF-Board collapsed on that very meeting, I was asked to help putting a new organisation together, as I had all the contacts - because I asked them for shirts. Suddenly, I was running a global football governing body, organised three world cups and three Euros and traveled around the world - from Somaliland to South Ossetia - to help growing the beautiful game in places that are often overlooked. For 7 years, I was basically a football official of sorts, although always voluntarily. I gave thousands of interviews met hundreds of player, watched dozens of matches and put hundreds of medals around the neck of players. My English improved drastically and I learned more through it than I could ever even write down here. All that, because I collected football shirts and actually was interested in these teams, the players and the staff running them. Now, CONIFA is a bit shit and that hurts, but I am still doing my best to understand, promote and help many of these less fortunate, often non-FIFA, nations wherever I can. By writing scientific papers on sports policy and history, by raising funds for Niue or a kids football school in Armenia or by writing journalistic articles and doing a podcast on the history of women's football. Football shirts, really, made me fall in love with football again and all the beauty and glory surrounding it beyond the glitzy big FIFA tournaments.
What next?
Frankly, I don't know. I guess I will keep collecting. If anything, I love this hobby more than I did 10 years ago, when I often financially struggled to keep it alive. I do not have a fixed target anymore, but if I like a shirt, I will get it. I will also try to get a few more matchworn shirts to paint more of that map above in dark green. If you expected a witty idea here, I am sorry, I don't have one. I enjoy my collection and do spend time just admiring it. I do exhibit it at times, usually parts of it, and I like to speak about it or just wear my shirts. I will probably keep doing all of that, without the pressure of needing "that next country". That's not a bad thing, I guess.
