Jerry Seinfeld had it about right. “Loyalty to any one sports team is pretty hard to justify,” began his monologue at the start of The Label Maker. “Because the players are always changing, the team can move to another city, you’re actually rooting for the clothes when you get right down to it. You know what I mean, you are standing and cheering and yelling for your clothes to beat the clothes from another city. Fans will be so in love with a player but if he goes to another team, they boo him. This is the same human being in a different shirt, they hate him now. Boo! Different shirt! Boo!”
Proof that Jerry was the best part of two decades ahead of the curve has come in the NFL, where players have taken to swapping and ostentatiously autographing their shirts after games, much to the loud chagrin and intense displeasure of the old-school fan, for whom garments are sacred and such acts are verboten.
Gridiron fans may just have to get used to it. This sort of carry-on has been a part of soccer for quite a while now, having become long ingrained in the sport’s culture. The first instance of shirt-swapping is generally thought to have occurred at the Colombes Stadium in Paris in May 1931, when the French national team gave England a good hearty smack in the mouth. France won 5-2, a rout which the Manchester Guardian attributed to several fairly glaring English defects: “Weakness in attack, in which poor shooting, stumbling and miskicking played a prominent part.” Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
It was France’s first-ever victory over England, les Bleus having previously been on the wrong end of 4-1, 3-1, 3-2, 6-0, 5-1 and 4-1 shellackings. So this was epochal. And it was understandable that after the final whistle sounded, the French team asked their English counterparts if they could keep their shirts to commemorate a famous win. Mementos were swapped, and a fancy new tradition was born.
Perhaps the most famous shirt swap of all time was between Pele and Bobby Moore at the 1970 World Cup. Champions-elect Brazil had just beaten the reigning champs England 1-0 in a glorious group game in Guadalajara, and the two star players embraced in the centre circle. Pele cradled Moore’s face with his hand; Moore draped an arm around Pele’s shoulder. Tops were whipped off and exchanged, and we were left with a tableau vivant for the ages, one of soccer’s most iconic scenes, the living embodiment of respect, friendship and sportsmanship. The fact that the game itself contained more than its fair share of egregious dives, brazen body-checks and petty shirt tugs – one belly flop by Pele, executed in the hope of conning the ref into the award of a penalty, had an Olympic difficulty tariff of 5.8 – is quietly forgotten now. Print the legend.
There’s certainly no doubting that England’s quarter-final with Argentina at Wembley in 1966 was a feisty affair, though. Antonio Rattin was sent off for bugger all in the first half, and took seven minutes and 57 seconds to leave the field of play. England won a tight game with a late Geoff Hurst goal. After the match, Alberto Gonzalez tried to swap his shirt with George Cohen. The incensed England manager Alf Ramsey – who would later infamously refer to the Argentine side as “animals” – physically stopped his player from making the exchange. Crash, bang, wallop, another famous photograph, though this one doesn’t feature quite so much respect, friendship or sportsmanship. It’s a cartoon tug of war, the sleeve of Cohen’s shirt stretched halfway across Wembley to ripping point, a determined Ramsey making sure those glorious Umbro threads are going nowhere overseas. Gonzalez, looking more saddened than angry at this pitiful affair, simply sauntered off and swapped with Ray Wilson instead.
An unedifying spectacle, England hardly the most gracious of winners. Though even old Alf would have stopped short of a dirty protest. When the Netherlands beat West Germany in the semi-finals of Euro 88 in Hamburg, Dutch international Ronald Koeman swapped shirts with German midfielder Olaf Thon and then pretended to use the four-ply garment as toilet paper in front of the away support. A classy touch.
It would have been nice to have seen Koeman attempt that trick using a Republic of Ireland shirt in front of Roy Keane. Keane of course being a stickler for doing things the right way. Ireland played Andorra in the 2002 World Cup qualifiers, and with time running out, three Andorrans converged on Keane, staying on his shoulder for the last five minutes with a view to being the lucky recipient of the Manchester United star’s shirt. Little did they know how much this lack of basic in-game professionalism would affect the performance of the cylinder of righteousness pumping blood around Keane’s head. As soon as the whistle blew, Keane strode off with a face like thunder, storming past his three Andorran admirers and into the dressing room with his shirt remaining signally unswapped. It was later reported that he gave it to one of the local kids instead.
Shirt swapping was principally an international tradition in years gone by, though it slowly but surely crept into the club game. Eusebio making sure to get Alfredo di Stefano’s shirt after Benfica beat Real Madrid 5-3 in the 1962 European Cup final was something of an outlier. Nowadays shirts are swapped willy-nilly, with a drawer full of star-player shirts being as essential to the modern pro’s career collection as a clatter of medals. Everyone’s at it.
Though there is a time and a place. In 2012, Arsenal defender Andre Santos became a pariah with his own fans after swapping his shirt with Manchester United striker – and unpopular former Gunner – Robin van Persie at half time of a match at Old Trafford. It didn’t help that the eternally hapless Santos had been led a merry dance by van Persie during the 45 minutes that had preceded the swap – or that van Persie had scored – but the main thrust of all the displeasure and ire was that it simply wasn’t The Done Thing.
Similarly, Mario Balotelli of Liverpool was plunged into a virtuous pool of steaming hot water only last year, after swapping at the break with Real Madrid star Pepe. Again, what had gone before didn’t help matters: Liverpool were already 3-0 down in a Champions League fiasco. He was hooked at half time.
The holy Done Thing rule also applies after defeats at the hands of fierce rivals. Manchester City beat neighbours United 3-1 at their old Maine Road ground back in 2002. Ruud van Nistelrooy sauntered into the United changing room with a City shirt draped over his shoulder, having barely given the matter a second’s thought and accepted it out of basic politeness. It took a similar amount of time for Sir Alex Ferguson to blow his top in the volcanic style. “You don’t give those shirts away! Ever!!! If I see anyone giving a shirt away they won’t be playing for me again.”
But you’re never going to stop soccer stars doing it, especially if they’ve become addicted collectors. The former Paris St Germain and France midfielder Vincent Guerin told So Foot that he searched out shirts with the same passion he used to collect Panini stickers as a kid. The jewel of his collection was a jersey from the GDR, the former East Germany. “That was a hell of an escapade to get. It was from before the fall of the Berlin Wall, obviously, and it was very tough for them to exchange jerseys. We had to sort of hide in the corridor to hand them over. But it’s a real cult jersey now because it doesn’t exist any more.”
So yes, this has been going on in the world of soccer for quite some time. We’re used to it. And on the whole, it’s no big deal. But let’s not get too smug about any NFL over-reactions. Let’s wait to hear the response from the traditionalists when the Lionel Messis and Cristiano Ronaldos of this world finally take their lead from the States, get their marker pens out, and start happily scribbling away in the centre circle regardless of how el clásico’s panned out. You’ll be able to hear soccer’s old-school whining in Alaska.
