December 2024 Recap
Since 2020, I’ve been sharing Romanian football stories, in English, on Instagram using visuals and football shirts, aimed at younger audiences. For longer stories that don’t fit on Instagram, I’ve been writing on this blog.
Instagram isn’t always the best place for every detail of Romanian football, and sometimes the stories aren’t quite big enough for a full blog post. That’s why I’ve compiled some of the top highlights from my December feed into short drafts here on Medium, for those who prefer reading outside of Instagram.
Designing for Unity
Romania had a good run at Euro 2024 in Germany this summer. I finally took the time to write the story of my contribution. In May 2024, I collaborated with the Romanian Football Federation, as a freelance designer on a project, for the hotel where the Romania National Team players and staff stayed during the Euros in Würzburg, Germany.
I designed various elements based on their requirements, including flags, lounge pictures, gym room, player room decor, locker designs, and other printed materials. Goal was to create a welcoming environment that made the players and staff feel at “home”.
Link to story: Designing Unity: Behind the Scenes of Romania’s Euro 2024 Visual Identity
Shirt maintenance
For two weekends in December, I did some shirt maintenance, checking about 100 shirts. A common question I get is where I store my collection of over 300 shirts. The answer: it’s complicated.
When I started, I had no system. My first 30 shirts shared space in my wardrobe with my clothes. But as the collection grew, it became clear I needed a better solution. Besides matchworn Romanian player shirts, I also have around 50 retro and vintage shirts from the ’90s, featuring legends like Van Nistelrooy, Zidane, Davids, Bergkamp, and Overmars.
As the collection expanded, I started buying Ikea hangers weekly. When my wardrobe overflowed, I moved the shirts to a storage room, adding two Ikea TURBO racks. Hanging the shirts in a smoke-free, dry, and cool environment (under 15°C) without direct sunlight worked best to prevent fading and peeling.
To protect white shirts, I invested in about 50 zippered covers. However, as my collection kept growing, space became an issue. I couldn’t fit a third TURBO rack, so I began storing retro/vintage shirts in plastic boxes while keeping matchworn ones on hangers to avoid damage to prints and names. This system isn’t perfect, but it works for now. I’ll need a larger space eventually!
I moved 100 matchworn shirts, this December, from hangers into boxes. To protect them further, I used zip bags from Amazon, labeling each bag with the shirt inside and adding a label on the box for easy identification. To safeguard the names and sponsors, I placed baking paper inside the zip bags.
This maintenance checks I often do offers me an opportunity to check on the shirts that I have collected over the years and make sure there are no issues.
And if I spot something is wrong then I need to act. The adidas Romania shirts from the mid 2000s have some quality issues but the newer ones do not have any real issues expect the fact they decolorize faster than others if exposed to extreme sunlight.
I still think the best way to maintain your football shirts is on hangers but under this circumstances I have to adapt.
Romania 2025 shirt leaked
In January 2024, the Romanian Football Federation (FRF) reached out to me with an exciting challenge: they wanted fresh ideas for the home shirt to be used in the World Cup 2026 European Qualifiers.
Joma, the official kit supplier, had already proposed designs, but the FRF felt they didn’t capture the spirit they were looking for. As a result, they approached several Romanian designers, including me, to reimagine the home shirt based on their creative brief.
What started as a proposal for the home shirt quickly evolved — I ended up designing not only the home kit but also the away, third, training, and pre-match gear. These new designs are scheduled for release in March 2025.
Interestingly, my initial mockups were “leaked” on Footy Headlines — the go-to platform for football shirt enthusiasts worldwide. This marked a first for Romanian football, as no kit had ever received this level of international “leak coverage” before.
When the leak surfaced in October, I had mixed feelings. Over the past months, I’ve been bombarded with messages asking if the designs were real. Most of the time, I’ve had to stay silent and dodge the topic. Yet, despite the uncertainty, I can’t help but feel a sense of pride. Seeing my work spark such buzz and contribute to the conversation around Romanian football is an incredible experience — even if it started with a leak!
ORF most read article in 2024
My most popular article on my blog this year is Romania’s Lookalikes Football Shirts.
Romania’s national football team has never had an original shirt design of its own. For over 30 years, the team relied on template designs provided by Adidas, with no unique identity at the kit level.
This article is here to change that! Aimed at educating younger generations, it kicks off with a simple, engaging introduction to how football shirt templates work. But don’t worry if you’re not a football fanatic — there’s plenty of fascinating history and design insight to capture anyone’s interest.
Romania shirt tracking database
I’ve been keeping track, on a small scale, of all the shirts Romania national team has played in since 2021. To do this, I created two databases in Notion: one for the 2021–2022 season and another for the recently concluded 2023–2024 season. Currently, there’s no official resource like this available.
I’ve relied on sources like Wikipedia, frf.ro media, word of mouth, and online newspapers to ensure accuracy, documenting everything from which goalkeeper shirt was used in a specific game to whether the shirt featured a patch or not.
This database is a personal resource that will help me in the future when I need to track a specific national team shirt. However, I’ve decided to make these databases public in case others find the information useful too. They are up-to-date, and I plan to continue updating them annually.
Let me know in a comment or via private message if this links work for your or if you think they are useful.
I post stories about Romania match worn shirts on Instagram. If you want to get in touch with me you can find me there as onromanianfootball:
https://www.instagram.com/onromanianfootball/
