I’m sorry I can’t link it but the other day I read a tweet that said something like: “In these moments of extreme polarization, there is only one thing that unites all of Spain: the fake National Team shirt.”
In cascade, there were the answers. One after another, fans fed up with the abusive price of football shirts, an accessory that It is already transversal to the sport itself but for which many are not willing to pay more (much more) than 100 euros for a product that you can have at home for just over 20 euros.
At the gates of a World Cup, with a Spanish team that excites and a shirt that has had a deep impact since its presentation, the team’s second kit, the white one, can already be seen everywhere.
And, of course, it’s not always official.
It complicates your month
According to Bankinter datathe median salary in Spain for a man was about 26,000 euros in 2024, the latest data published. That of women was just over 22,000 euros. That leaves us with a gross salary, of course, in 14 payments of just over 1,800 euros for them and less than 1,600 euros for women.
With that salary, whoever wants to buy the official shirt of the Spanish National Team, replicating all its details, will be dedicating around 15% of the money that enters their account at the end of the month.
- Official Authentic T-shirt: 150 euros
- Player name: 20 euros
- FIFA patch: 10 euros
- Euro champion patch: 7 euros
The accounts come out quickly and easily: 187 euros It is what it costs to wear the same shirt with which Lamine Yamal will take the field in Atlanta (United States) on June 15 at 6:00 p.m. (peninsular time) to face Cape Verde.
That, of course, if you manage to get your hands on any of the t-shirts that They have already flown from the Adidas website.
For much less, just 23 euros, you can have a replica at home in less than two weeks. It’s not that I asked one of the many in my close circle who have already gotten one. There is simply a website that ranks ahead of Adidas itself on Google.
The German company says that “Spain’s away shirt pays tribute to this country’s incredible literary legacy, with intricate prints inspired by manuscripts, a nod to the cultural depth of the Spanish language that connects culture and football.”
Let’s say that that other website does not offer such a literary description but what is certain is that there must be plenty of clients.
The (pen)last example
The second Adidas kit has highlighted the rise of fake t-shirts replicas and the enormous popularity they have garnered in recent years.
Sid Lowea British sports journalist welcomed by the Asturian community, echoed this article in Digital Freedom in which the enormous popularity of Spain’s second shirt is mentioned. The one that no one seems to have paid at the price that Adidas lists on its website.
Click on the image to go to the original tweet
The responses criticizing the high price of the official set and the defense of getting one, let’s say, less official are repeated one after another.
Click on the image to go to the original tweet
The answers seem to concentrate each and every one of the issues surrounding the underworld that football shirts have become in recent years.
Those of us who have dressed Saturdays, Sundays and summer holidays in football shirts and shirts know that replicas do not have the same feel as an original. No? Sure? Without a doubt, it looks a lot like him. It’s something I’ve known from conversations with friends and because… well, he who is free from sin…
An example: Real Madrid shirt 99/00. Pushed by the nostalgia effect dosmilerothe aftershocks multiplied their presence in the streets. To the point that Adidas took advantage of the pull to reissue them and make good money. At least, to get mine and that of enough fans who spend our 110 euros to buy a shirt with more than a quarter of a century of history.
In my case it was because I wanted to have the shirt with which Raúl dribbled past Santiago Cañizares to score Real Madrid’s third goal in the Champions League Final in Paris. He wanted “the one on Eighth”, the black one. Because the white one had already been given to me a few months before and this one was not entirely true. And, despite this, I had to go to the closet to rescue the shirt that I was wearing when I was eight years old and had an R. Carlos (3) on the back to certify that it did not have the same shiny patina that the official one had. Nor was the stitching of the shield the same, of course.
No, it wasn’t the same, but it was almost identical..
And that is enough for many, many of us to wear the shirt of our childhood on the street again. It doesn’t matter if the shirt is from Raúl’s best years, Djalminha wearing Feiraco on the chest of Deportivo de la Coruña or Maradona carrying Buitoni to levels of popularity they never imagined.
They all share a single code: they are fashionable.
So much so that Adidas has not hesitated to reissue iconic designs from the nineties and 2000s. Without going any further and taking advantage of the return of the World Cup to the United States, For 110 euros you can dress like Clemente’s Spain in 1994. At least, the Germans have had the detail of not reissuing the second kit, forever anchored in a Luis Enrique bloodied.
The football shirt phenomenon has become a transversal fashion that transcends genres, decades and teams. They are there when you go to buy bread, when you have a party with friends and when you go to the summer music festival.
That has also created a problem. “Original t-shirts, if you take care of them, you can use them for a few years and they will appreciate in value in the future,” one of the users answers Sid Lowe.
Indeed, in large cities t-shirts have emerged in second hand clothing stores. Almost all at a ridiculous price. Almost all in a sorry state. And the ones that are in good condition, the ones you find in specialized stores (which have also multiplied) shoot up their price two and three times above what they ask for today for the second kit of the Spanish National Team.
A bubble that seems not to burst and that has relegated the original t-shirts from the 90s and early 2000s to the depths of the closets, now only within the reach of collectors and speculators. Who was he unconscious brave to buy the “ketchup shirt” of Athletic Bilbao, the 2004/2005, He has hundreds and hundreds of euros accumulated in the closet.
And as expected, the result is an absolutely skyrocketing replica market. The one who has killed the illusion of seeing a Ronaldo (9) in a red and white striped shirt and a Zidane (10) in a blue one with white and red stripes crossed on the chest. Or a Rivaldo (10) in a blaugrana with the shield in the center.
At least, yes, it makes you smile when you read a Gullit (10) on a Holland 1988 shirt that never existed.
Photo | Xataka and Spanish Soccer Team
In Xataka | Let’s be clear: modern football has nothing to do with old football
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