Guides

The story behind Argentina's 1986 World Cup shirt — the official Le Coq Sportif kit, the improvised Tepito-market away shirt, and the £7.1m Maradona jersey that became football's holy grail.

Player version or fan version? A clear breakdown of fit, fabric, badges, weight and price across Nike, Adidas and Puma's 2025/26 and 2026 World Cup kits.

Player version shirts are the exact garments worn on the pitch — lighter fabric, slimmer fit, heat-pressed badges. Fan versions are roomier, hardier replicas. Here's how to tell them apart and which one to buy.

Forty years on, adidas's plain green Mexico 1986 home shirt — Negrete's scissor-kick kit — is still the most quietly perfect El Tri jersey ever made.

Everything you need to know about football shirt printing in 2026 — official league fonts, printing costs, sleeve patches, and the common mistakes that ruin a jersey.

The canary yellow, the green V-neck, Carlos Alberto's thunderbolt: revisiting the shirt The Times ranked the greatest of all time, and the blueprint for Brazil's 2026 World Cup release.

Crooked crests, fuzzy prints and dodgy neck labels: the seven authenticity checks that catch out 90% of counterfeit football shirts in 2026.

Player version football shirts are the slim-fit, performance-fabric shirts squads wear on the pitch. Fan versions are roomier, heavier and £30–£60 cheaper. Here is the honest side-by-side breakdown.