October 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 October feed into short drafts here on Medium, for those who prefer reading outside of Instagram.
*Writing this month recap early as I will be travelling until end of November.
Romania Adidas Fantasy Kit 2024
This is a design simulation of how Romania’s shirts could look if Adidas were the sponsor in 2024.
The design uses the Teamgeist template, which Adidas recently brought back for the Euros. Teams like Belgium, Germany, Italy, Spain, Scotland, and Hungary have also used this template for their new kits. Currently in the Romanian First League Otelul Galati, Sepsi and Universitatea Cluj are using this template for their home shirts.
On my blog post Romania’s Lookalike Football Shirts (link to story), I explain how Romania hasn’t had an original shirt design since their first game in Adidas in 1983.
The post highlights all the Adidas templates Romania has worn over the years and concludes that what made Romania’s Adidas shirts unique was how the three national colors were incorporated.
For this simulations, I took inspiration from Romania’s Euro 2000 shirt, using blue for the sides, red stripes on the shoulders, and a red collar. The match details and player numbers are in blue. For the other simulation, I took inspiration from Romania’s Away white shirts used between 2004 and 2008. I used red for the sides, blue stripes on the shoulders, and the collar blue. The match details and player numbers are set in blue.
Completed the 2023–2024 collection
I’ve added all the Romania National Team shirts for the 2023–2025 season to my collection! These shirts were/are used for the Euro 2024 Qualifiers, Euro 2024, Nations League 2024, and Euro Under-21 2023.
Since Joma took over in 2015, I’ve collected every shirt model used in official games. The only ones missing are the goalkeeper shirts from the first generation (2015–2017).
By the end of 2024, Romania and Joma will hit a milestone of 100 games together (the game against Cyprus on November 18).
Unfortunately, it seems like there won’t be any special shirt or event to celebrate this achievement, even though it’s a big deal!
KitLegit app
In December 2023, I joined the KitLegit team, a mobile app that helps you verify if your football shirt is authentic or a fake. I worked on a pro-bono basis, advising and working on the app’s user interface design and user experience.
The app offers a flow where you need to take couple of photos to your football shirt and at the end will tell you if it is a fake or an authentic. Based on image analysis. If it is authentic you will get a PDF certificate of authentication. So far plenty of webshops use it so they can boost their sales. Many large web shops, including the big ones, have sold and still sell sometimes counterfeit shirts.
About 10 years ago, when I first started collecting football shirts, I was frustrated to discover that I had unknowingly bought fake ones, mostly from eBay. At that time, there was no reliable information or anyone I could turn to for help. I didn’t know much about football shirts back then.
Now, a decade later, I consider myself much more knowledgeable in this field, and I continue to learn new things every day. That’s why I wanted to contribute my skills in design and shirt authentication to support KitLegit’s mission.
If you run a shirt web shop or football club and want to offer added value to your fans, this app is exactly what you need. And for people who want to start a collection, it’s an handy tool. As I write this the app is available on App store and Google Play. We soft launched in September.
My latest design contribution was on adding some social feature to it such as discovering what other people are checking and being able to share your collection of authentic shirts, but same time enlighten and educate how to identify a fake shirt. My overall core contribution was designing the user experience of the “Checking Flow” - the flow where users go when they want to check their if their shirt is counterfeit or authentic.
All in all I have decided to pause for the time being my contributions to the project untill end of November.
Down In Mexico
Since 2019, I’ve combined my love for traveling and sports by spending a month, each year, between October and November, exploring different towns in Mexico. During these trips, I’ve attended matches for teams like Club América, Pumas, Juárez, and Monterrey, sharing many of these experiences on Instagram through stories and reels. Over time, I’ve added match-worn shirts from Club América and Chivas to my collection.
One of my goals was to track down a shirt worn by Ilie Dumitrescu or Miodrag Belodedici from their time at Club América or Atlante F.C. However, after several years of searching, I’ve come to realize that the chances of finding an authentic one are about as likely as spotting a UFO. I encountered some collectors, but their shirts were either fake or not match-worn. Over the years, I’ve learned a lot about the collectors’ market in Mexico, but I decided to stop pursuing this particular dream due to the high counterfeiting shirt market in Mexico.
In 2021, when I met Mr. Belodedici, I told him about my wild quest to find his shirt from Atlante. Even he admitted that it would be nearly impossible!
This year I will head out to check Guadalajara besides my normal visiting routine. This town has a special spot in the Romanian Football lore because of the unique Romanian shirt worn by Pelé. You can the story of that shirt on my blog: Romania’s Unique Shirt.
I’m writing this to let you know that I won’t be posting any new stories for the rest of the year. However, I plan to write in 2025, focusing on behind-the-scenes content, including the design process for the Romania national team shirt I worked on in collaboration with Romanian Football Federation and Joma. This shirt is set to debut in March 2025 during the opening game of the European qualifiers for the World Cup.
Shirts I shared on my Instagram feed in October 2024:
- Romania Adidas Away 2007–2008
- Romania Goalkeeper 2014–2015
- Horatiu Moldovan shirt from Romania-Kosovo, Euro 2024 qualifiers
- Romania National Team Nike Fantasy Kit
- Romania National Team Puma Fantasy Kit
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/
