Summer 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 Instagram over the past four months into short drafts here on Medium, for those who prefer reading outside of Instagram.
Romania National Team Hotel at Euro 2024
In May, I collaborated with the Romanian Football Federation, as a freelancer on a design project, for the hotel where the Romania National Team players and staff stayed during the Euros.
I designed elements based on their requirements, including flags, lounge pictures, gym room, player room decor, team locker designs, and other printed materials. Goal was to create a welcoming environment that made the players and staff feel at “home”.
One of my favorite aspects of the project was a 12-meter-wide banner hanging from the facade of the hotel. It became a popular spot where many players took photos and shared happy moments.
At the end of the three-week project, the design files totaled 80 GB. I used Illustrator to create the elements according to the brand book and their vision, even if it didn’t always match my personal taste. For complete transparency, I charged €2500 for this project.
The Romanian hotel and training grounds were praised by FIFA the way it was organised with the designs and such. These days you can find a part of these designs at the Bucharest International Airport, reused.
Romania Shirt at a glance
Since 2021, I have been tracking the shirts worn by Romania’s national teams across all games. This includes the men’s senior team, women’s senior team, and the U21 and U20 youth teams. When I started, no such information was readily available, so I relied on videos and images from the web to document which shirts were worn in which games. Goal was to create a centralized record and eventually expand it to include data from before 2021.
If you enjoy statistics, here’s an interesting one: The latest shirts from Joma, introduced in March 2023, have seen the men’s senior team play 18 games as of August 2024. Romanian men’s senior team has never lost a game when the goalkeeper was wearing the green shirt.
All defeats were when the grey goalkeeper shirt was used. Statistically the yellow shirt is so far the most “successful” one since Joma took over in 2016.
Betting sponsors in Romanian Football
This highlights how unattractive Romanian football has become to various investors. For years, the Romanian First League has been heavily sponsored by betting companies, and now it’s spiraling out of control — teams are being targeted too.
I shared this on Reddit, and it reached the front page of r/soccer with 118 comments. From the comments, I learned that this issue isn’t unique to Romania; leagues in Portugal, Bulgaria, Brazil, and Slovakia face similar problems.
Prepping the shirt for the game Romania 3:1 Lithuania, 09.09.2024
In the first week of September I helped prepare the shirts for the Romania 3:1 Lithuania game that took place on 09.09.2024.
I also visited Brancusi’s hometown, home of the iconic Endless Column, which inspired the current number font on Romania’s national team shirts. A town where I grew up.
Since 2019, I’ve been connected with the person responsible for Romania’s match shirts, who taught me so much about football shirts. There are so many small details that I only know about the Romanian football shirts because of this involvement.
Our collaboration peaked in 2023 when we co-designed the font on the team’s match shirts — story here on my blog! (Link)
Over the years, I’ve volunteered (for free) in the Romania national team workshop, helping out where needed with small task, even during long 18-hour days before matches. It’s hard work but rewarding, and I’ve even prepped some match shirts myself — though not without mistakes, like when I mispositioned a number on Florin Niță’s shorts in 2022!
There are no robots, there is no automation, no machines in the workshop. Only two heat presses from Siser and all hands on deck before each game.
Shirt prepping isn’t my full-time job, but my passion for football shirts keeps me involved. And in January, it all led to an exciting opportunity: designing Romania’s new national team kit set to launch next year.
Articles I wrote this summer on Medium:
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/
