:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/63044815/1129121290.jpg.0.jpg)
Hi, all!
Have you heard? The Champions League is back.
Ramble of the Day
I didn’t get around to rambling about this in the moment, but this still feels like a decent topic several weeks later. I’m sure a number of you will remember that Ruud van Nistelrooy received a custom jersey made of pieces of jerseys from all the clubs he played for.
This is...interesting! Ruud van Nistelrooy was gifted this commemorate shirt made up of his entire playing career.
— FOOTY.COM (@footydotcom_) February 3, 2019
FC Den Bosch
SC Heerenveen
PSV Eindhoven
Manchester United
Real Madrid C.F.
Hamburger SV
Málaga C.F. pic.twitter.com/M69YC0f4dc
I did once ramble about my distaste for half-and-half jerseys, but I actually like this one. There was clearly some consideration for design in the making of this jersey, which is probably why it isn’t so jarring at first glance in the way half-and-half jerseys tend to be. It isn’t meant to be worn in a traditional sense; one photograph in it is probably enough. It would, though, look great on a wall.
This brings me to a different point, though. Half-and-half jerseys are uncreative and from a design perspective, are probably the wrong way to break jerseys down. Taking a few and thinking carefully about them is a decent way to go about it, and the results can be tasteful and worth looking at as opposed to worth wearing. If you’re not thinking that hard and you’re taking a bunch of jerseys and stitching them together, then you could end up with something hilariously bad and fun to look at. It’s a win-win, really.
Either way, there are a couple of players’ jerseys I’d like to see attempted under the same guidelines as van Nistelrooy’s: Peter Crouch, now on club number 11; world’s oldest footballer Kazuyoshi Miura, who has played for 14 clubs in 5 countries; and Bill Nicholson, who played for a whopping one club for the entirety of his career.
tl;dr: A jersey in several parts might not be such a bad idea.
Links of the Day
Gordon Banks, winner of the 1966 World Cup with England, has died at age 81.
Supplemental reading: Richard Williams’s obituary for The Guardian
A Burnley has been charged after racially abusing Brighton’s Gaëtan Bong over the weekend.
David Squires covers Chelsea’s big defeat over the weekend and Maurizio Sarri’s status at the club in his latest cartoon.
Today’s longer read: Sam Dean interviews Hugo Lloris on feeling an emptiness after winning the World Cup and focusing on the present for The Telegraph