The 1982 World Cup games in Spain brought with them a new era in world football, which will probably repeat itself in every major tournament: the English, after a brilliant decade, arrived as favorites.
Nothing new, but then this argument still caught on.
In the first game, England beat France 1:3, but in the dressing room they were less concerned with the victory and more with the physical condition of the players.
It turns out that they lost tens of kilograms together due to the heat that prevailed in the stadium, but mainly due to the red uniforms which were made of opaque polyester fabric and did not wick sweat.
The players informed those who needed it that they could not continue like this, and that same night the "Admiral" company produced new shirts for the team in a factory in England with a more breathable fabric.
The speed with which the shirts were made was clearly evident in the next game of the English, where each of the players came up with the team's emblem embroidered on his shirt at a different height, and not in a uniform way.
In real time, these shirts were sold in good quantities, but as the years go by, the uniforms have become a collector's item, and fans of soccer shirts are ready to pay high sums if only for the English team they will make more of these retro shirts, including the mistakes in the stitching.
Today, of course, such stories are science fiction.
National team uniforms have become a business that brings in millions to the clothing companies, and of course to the national teams themselves, which is also the reason why they don't stop producing national team uniforms to get more and more money from the fans around the world.
Israel, of course, is part of the global phenomenon.
"We detected a 20% increase in the sale of the soccer category compared to the previous World Cup games," says Tomer Cohen, Adidas Israel's VP of Marketing. "The shirts of the Argentina and Germany teams are the most sold in Israel, and third by a considerable margin is Spain." More shirts that have become an item Collectors for the fans even before the games started are those of Mexico and Belgium. Mexico's Aztec jersey received a tremendous buzz on social networks, and of course also arrived in Israel.
The hysteria surrounding soccer shirts can also be seen on social media in Israel, and the phenomenon of "normalizing" soccer shirts as a necessary fashion item for men, and sometimes also for women, has become completely legitimate.
Yes, you can go to the bar mitzvah or the neighborhood bar with the beautiful away shirt of the Belgium national team inspired by "Tomorrowland" and messages of free love.
Israelis pay a lot for soccer shirts (between 250 and 450 shekels for official shirts), but also order on online shopping sites shirts of national teams that do not appear in World Cup games, but are considered designed and rare in collectors' terms.
As someone who collected football shirts himself until recently, you can understand the intensity of the madness when you hear the story about the shirt that Maradona wore in the World Cup games in 1986 for the legendary game against the England team.
Argentina went to the game with a set of clothes bought in Mexico City, two days before the game, after the players complained about the away uniforms that were not made of breathable fabric and made them - just like the English in Spain - sweat throughout the game without being able to evaporate the sweat.
Two sets were bought and brought to the dressing room, and the final arbiter was of course Diego Armando Maradona.
The chosen shirt was sold last year at a price of NIS 28 million, and was the most expensive soccer shirt of all time, mainly due to the fact that two of the greatest goals ever in world soccer were scored with this shirt.
One of the things that is going to be unusual in the current games is the fact that the uniforms will also convey a message, in view of the problematic hosting of Qatar.
The Danes plan to wear a blurred logo on their uniforms with the words "Human rights for all" to send a message to the organizers about the workers who died during the works, but FIFA informed them that they are not ready for any messages on the shirts.
According to the reports, the Danes will surprise with black shirts for the opening match against Tunisia, and if that happens - you can be sure that these shirts will immediately become a rare collector's item.
The Germans talk about motifs of the symbols of pride in their uniforms, but they too have already received a message from their association that it is better to give up, and not create a provocation.
Parade: The ten most beautiful World Cup shirts of all time
10. Holland - World Cup 1978
The State of Israel was all in favor of the Orange team, Johan Cruyff was the idol of the era, and the orange shirt was a must-have item that is requested from those who fly abroad. An interesting detail about the Adidas shirt was that Cruyff only played with two stripes, due to his personal sponsorship agreement with Puma.
9. Argentina - World Cup 1986 (away uniform)
What was not written, spoken or sold about this crazy shirt, which drove the football world and shirt collectors crazy.
The shirt was sold, of course, for a record amount for a soccer team shirt of all time.
8. Colombia - World Cup 2018
The homage to the uniforms of the legendary 1990 World Cup team was a resounding success: both in the redesign, in sales that broke local and world records, and in the World Cup - which was successful in itself for them.
7. France - World Cup 1986
Two years before, in the 1984 European Championship games, France decided to introduce red for the first time in the colors of the team, which won the title.
The success was tremendous and caused the players to wear the same uniforms in 1986 as well.
At the end of the previous millennium, the French went to the last two major tournaments of the century in shirts that were a homage to those shirts.
6. Italy - World Cup 2002
What was not written about the tight and handsome shirt of the Kappa company at that time.
In Israel, the shirts sold out of the shelves in a flash, and if you think that now people wear football shirts, then at the beginning of the century everyone went to parties with the tight shirts and thought they had Totti's body.
And no, they hadn't.
5. England - World Cup 1970
The world champion arrives at the tournament wearing a Yumbro uniform, only with an innovation that will characterize the 70s and 80s: a perforated shirt made of a material called Air-Tech, to allow the players ventilation during the game.
Beyond the technical and design uniqueness, the English came up for the first time with light blue away uniforms - very quickly they returned to the traditional red uniforms in the kingdom.
4. England - World Cup 1966
It is doubtful that there is a team shirt that has received more retro editions, innovations and mentions in popular culture than that shirt with which the English won their only World Cup - for its simplicity, the bright red color that has become the hallmark and the fact that it always reminds them that once they did not just come with hopes for a big tournament, But they really won it.
3. Brazil - World Cup 1970
The greatest team of all, the most famous shirt in the world, and no attempt to produce retro shirts will succeed in recreating that feeling.
It is true that the team's away shirt in that World Cup was also mythological, but the one from the home games in Mexico created mythology in one glance: anyone who looks at this shirt, and is old enough to remember Pele, knows that it tells the story of an entire era.
2. Peru - World Cup 1978
There was great debate over the question of whether this is the greatest national team shirt of all time: the red stripe, which looks like a sash due to its prominence, created a mythology not only among soccer fans, but first of all in Peru itself: in a survey conducted in the 1980s in the country, the local children thought that a white cloth with A diagonal red stripe is the flag of the country.
1. Denmark - World Cup 1986
Denmark's home shirt in the games in Mexico was described by some players as a "window cleaning rag".
But soon, back in those games in a world without internet, it was clear that this was the most popular national team shirt in the world.
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