Germany 10

 

Somehow, I struggle to find a picture of this shirt in use. It must be from one of the friendlies before the 2011 World Cup, as Germany still did wear the World Champion badge it earned in 2007. it is apparently a matchworn shirt, too, coming straight from a former player. 

But the best part, of course, is that this shirt was worn by an actual Ballon d'Or winner - Nadine Keßler, who won the trophy in 2014. I did pay 50€ for this shirt and am really happy with it - as the design is just incredible, too!

Germany 9

 

Kira Malinowski (SG Essen-Schönebeck) & Annika Doppler (FC Bayern München)
vs. France (1:1; 3:5 pen) | U19 Euros | 2010 in Macedonia

This is the shirt that Germany wore to win the 2009 World Cup - although this particular one is from the U19 Euros in Macedonia the year after. I am not sure which player wore it, but it is definitely matchworn and comes with all the right badges. It is also signed by the entire squad.

I got this from a former national team player for as little as 40€ - and I am more than pleased with it!

Germany 8

 

Brigit Prinz (1. FFC Frankfurt)
vs. Canada (2:1) | World Cup | 2011 in Germany

Finally, I got a shirt of the best German national team - the women's national team. And this one is quite special to me, too. Mostly, because it is from the first women's football tournament I thoroughly followed - the 2011 World Cup in Germany. Before that tournament, I did take notice of the women's national teams success, did very much appreciate Birgit Prinz, but did not really follow the team or women's football in general. That changed in 2011, when half the country was going crazy about the World Cup hosted in Germany. I started watching the opening match, a narrow win over Canada, and ended up seeing almost all matches of the tournament, including those without Germany. I ended up being a massive Japan fan and was celebrating their victory in the end.

Now, that was a tragic result for Germany in the end. We started into the tournament as the reigning World and European Champion - and were the clear favourite, especially as the host of it. But the tournament never really kicked off for Germany. The narrow win over Canada was followed by narrow wins over Nigeria and France, before we lost to Japan in the first knockout stage match. Somehow, the team seemed nervous, almost overwhelmed by the buzz about the tournament. In hindsight, that is less surprising, given that most players were semi-pro at best - but back then it was really hard to watch at times.

Now, almost 15 years later, women's football has become a very important part of my life, somehow. I am co-hosting a women's football podcast (in German) and run the women's football blog www.forgotten-heroines.com, which tries to tell the history of women's football once country at a time. That said, I am over the moon with this shirt, which I actually nicked from my wife, who got it back in 2011.

Germany 7

 

Christian Wörns (Borussia Dortmund)
vs. England (1:5) | Friendly | 2001 in Germany

 

German football has really reached rock bottom around 2000, at least during my lifetime. We got just a single point in the Euros, drawing against Romania, only a single German club (Bayern) made it to the Champions League knockout stages and Werder Bremen's run to the Quarter Final was the best German performance in the UEFA Cup. But, things got better pretty fast, somehow. Just a year later, Bayern Munich won the Champions League, Kaiserslautern made it to the UEFA Cup semis and Markus Babbel opened the scoring for Liverpool to win that tournament. But then, we played England. And boy, did England play us. In a meaningless friendly, England beat Germany 5:1.

That match caused a bit of an outrage in Germany. Christian Wörns, the player in the picture above, spoke of a "step back into stone age". In England, the media went equally crazy about the match - but obviously much more positive. Today, that match is forgotten in Germany, really. After all, it was just a friendly. As my English friends keep telling me, however, it is still very much remembered in England for obvious reasons.

Now this shirt is matchworn and I paid around 70€ for it. It is not, however, from the A national team, but rather from a youth team. I am not entirely sure from which age level it is, but as I also got the home shirt and some tickets and letters with it, I guess the source was legit and the shirt thus is.

Germany 6

 

Lukas Podolski (1. FC Köln)
vs. Südafrika (4:2) | Friendly | 2005 in Germany

Naturally, I love Lukas Podolski. He is not just quite exactly my age, he is also from a small town just next to me, which means we did had a couple of common friends and actually met two or three times in my youth. But unlikely my untalented self, Podolski went on to play in the Bundesliga, the national team and later in England, Italy, Turkey, Japan. He still plays in Poland for Gornik Zabrze, just 10 minutes drive from the town he was born in, Gliwice. He did win the Bundesliga once, during his unhappy time at Bayern, and the cup competitions in Germany, England, Japan and Turkey.

But Podolski mostly became a legend for his stupendous goals. Globally, there have been few players that scored screamers so regularly as he did, mostly with his vicious left foot. As a result, Podolski won the "Goal of the Month" trophy in Germany 13 times, more often than any other player. He scored one of the trophy winning goals in a friendly vs. South Africa in 2005, wearing this unusual red away shirt. That was a year before he won the "Youth Player of the World Cup" trophy at the 2006 World Cup, beating some blokes named Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo who got the silver and bronze awards.

The shirt itself is not exactly a beauty, admittedly. It is a template that a couple of national teams used in 2005ish. I own a Japan and a France shirt of the same template myself. Yet, that Podolski basically started his international career in it does make it stand out to me - and so I was happy getting it for about 30€.

Greece 4

 

Unknown Player
vs. Croatia (0:1) | World Cup Qualifier | 1997 in Greece

This shirt is frankly insane. It just breaks with all the rules of football shirts - and I bloody love it! First, it does have a massive blue stripe all over the belly, with two slimmer stripes on top and under it. This guarantees that even professional athletes will definitely look like a chubby guy having a walk. 

Then, the designers thought about the classical placement of the FA and company logo. Usually, one is on the left and the other on the right chest, of course. Diadora apparently hated it and just put their brand in the center of the shirt, while printing the FA logo straight onto the optically bulged belly. They also just printed it into the fabric, using lines that were so thin that it is basically invisible during a football match. So if you ever want to look like chubby man that loves Diadora and does not support any team (openly), go for this one! Thanks, Diadora for putting this into the world!

Greece 3

 

Unknown Player
vs. Austria (2:2) | Friendly | 2003 in Austria

Greece wears blue shirts with white or white shirts with blue, usually. I never fully understand how that works with FIFA regulations, but apparently it does. This one, as you can see, is the blue with white edition, which seems to be the away version of the 2002-2004 Greece shirt. Only in that brief period of time Le Coq Sportif equipped the team. That alone made this shirt quite interesting for me - and so I got it for about 100€ at some point. It is apparently matchworn, too, although I will never know in which match it was worn.