Background
If you have a football or soccer fan in your life – maybe your husband, boyfriend, son or daughter, how do you choose the perfect football gift or present for them? Especially if you don’t know much about football yourself?
Maybe you watch some games and know a bit about a team but not enough to go into the complicated world of football gifts and presents.
There are thousands of potential gift choices available but how do you make sure you choose something they will love?
Well, this guide will show you the key things you must and must not do.
Some Key Things
1. How it will make your football fan look to others
A football team is more than just a team. It is a badge of honor and a signal to the outside world. This is who I support and this is who I don’t support.
One girl told me when she wears the Barcelona shirt she feels more responsible and behaves more responsibly as she feels there is something more to her than if she was wearing just a normal t-shirt.
There is also a sense of belonging and a community with certain teams. The same girl also wore a shirt with Messi (Lionel Messi the world’s best player) on the back. People would actually talk to her wherever she went based on that. (This never happened without the Messi shirt).
A sense of connection
Video games like FIFA or management games like Football Manager help bring or connect the football fan closer to the game and also their team and favorite players.
For them to love your present, you need to tap into that.
It is a lot more complicated than you thought wasn’t it? Don’t worry it is fun. And even if it doesn’t work out brilliantly this time, you can learn from it until you find something great.
Do your Basic Research – Find out what they love
1. What specifically are they passionate about?
The key thing is always going to be specificity. Meaning you have to choose something which is absolutely specific to your person’s passions to do with football.
2. Which club or international teams do they support?
You have got to get this right. So if they say they support Manchester. Does that mean Manchester United or Manchester City?
If they support Madrid does that mean Real Madrid or Atletico Madrid?
If you get this wrong, it could cause divorce, legal action or worse. They may think you either don’t understand them or you are mocking them.
So make sure you understand if there is one club they absolutely adore. There might even be a team they love based e.g. on where they live and then a ‘bigger’ team like Barcelona or Real Madrid.
You can find out by asking the football fan who they support. They will look at you in shock that you don’t know but do this even if you think you know. Don’t assume you know!
The same for country. They may support their home country such as England or Wales and also have a romantic attachment to some of the bigger teams like Argentina or Brazil.
Find out. Again, just ask.
3. Are there any specific players they are passionate about?
I was recently in the lounge area of a 5 star hotel. There were some kids there watching the football match. I think they were from Germany. But one of them had a Real Madrid shirt with Ronaldo (Cristiano Ronaldo) on the back.
It just goes to show how international and popular some players are.
4. Now what kind of a person is this fan?
Are they interested in the latest fashions, or history and culture? Or travel or what? You can then tailor the present you get for them according to this.
For some fans, a book about their club would be amazing but others would find that boring and want something more active.
Now choose the type of present
Okay – we should now have some basic information to start with.
The club or clubs the fan loves. And the specific players they may really like.
Next Step is to work out the type of presents you can buy them.
Here are some choices. Remember, the closer you are to their passions the better. If you don’t get it right, don’t get it at all.
Clothing
This is always a great choice. Here is some background information.
Home and Away Kit
Every club or national team has usually two sets of shirts they wear for their competitive games. So for example, Manchester United will wear their red kit for their home games and then if they are playing another team which also wears red, they will then wear their second colors – for Manchester United, this is usually white.
The same goes for every club and national team like England or Germany. They have different colors depending upon which team they are facing.
Some teams even have a third choice colored shirt.
So now you have a choice of upto three colored shirts per club.
New v Old Replica Shirts
Now to make more money and if they have new sponsors, most clubs and national teams will change their kit designs every 2 to 3 years.
This is why if you are buying a replica football shirt, you must make sure or you must find out when the next kit is being introduced.
Replica just means this is exactly the shirt or the design of the shirt the real players wear each week on the pitch. The closer you get to the replica, the happier your football fan will be.
Often, national teams will introduce new kits before World Cups or European Championship tournaments.
Soccer clubs will often introduce new kits before the start of a new season in August or September. So depending upon when you are buying the shirt, it could be changed in a month or two.
If it is being discounted or is ‘on sale’ be very careful. It may seem great to you but your recipient could groan when they open it as it is ‘last year’s kit’! Despite you spending a lot of money on it!
Classic and Vintage Kit
Having said this, some shirts despite being ‘old’ are actually quite cool. And indeed, many of the older designs are being relaunched.
There is also a huge market for vintage clothing. So for example, I often see the really cool England 1982 World Cup shirts with their specific design. You can actually buy these brand new.
And for every national team you can buy shirts in classic styles. There are some iconic teams – Holland 1974, Hungary 1954, West Germany 1972, Brazil – almost any year and Argentina 1978. Where the designs are classic.
There is also the classic USA Away Kit from 1994 which is very hard to get hold of but looks amazing.
Similarly, there are classic and vintage designs available for every club.
So if you are going to choose a shirt which is not the latest design, then you can purposefully choose something vintage.
Name and Numbering
If you go ahead and buy a replica shirt, the next thing is to decide if you want name and numbering.
So find out who is the favorite player for the club or country of your football fan and you can then have the name of that player and their squad number engraved onto the shirt.
Many shops and online retailers will do this for you. Some of them will have these ready-made for the most popular players.
(The one risk is with a club player if that player leaves the club and your football fan is then stuck with their name. It could cause them a lot of embarrassment and labelled as Judas etc by fellow football fans.)
Training Tops and Other Clothing
You can also buy other clothing such as training tops or tracksuit tops which are less expensive and are often longer-lasting in as much as they are in fashion a while later.
The nice thing about clothing is that the fan can never have too much. If they have the home shirt of Manchester United, they would love the away shirt. If they have the latest Argentina shirt, they might also like the training top and so on.
And if they support one team, you could get their second favorite team e.g. if they support Chicago Fire, then maybe they also love Barcelona so you could get them that shirt also.
Other clothing includes jackets, socks, shorts, underwear, caps, hooded jackets and more.
Club Related Merchandise
Clubs release so much merchandise. If you are 100% sure you know which club your fan supports, you can buy just about anything which is related to that club:
Calendars
Diaries
Notebooks
Credit Cards
Stationery including rulers, pencils
Wallets
Key Rings
Posters
And much more
Books
Books are also a great choice. You can buy autobiographies or biographies of their favorite players like Messi or Ronaldo.
For every major club and just about every national team, there are books about the club themselves and their history, their greatest teams, their players and managers.
A Chelsea fan might love a book about John Terry or even Mourinho their former Manager and talisman.
General Soccer Books
There are also books about football itself. The history of football, the World Cup – which is a great present to buy ahead of an upcoming tournament like the World Cup 2018.
There are books about tactics such as Inverting the Pyramid or funny books and much more
Soccer DVDs
You can buy a DVD about their favorite player such as the amazing Ronaldo DVD. Or key matches or about their club.
Video Games
This can be a bit tricky but could be amazing. You must make sure your fan has the correct console or PC/laptop for the game you want to buy them.
There are only really two options: FIFA or Pro Evo Soccer for video games. FIFA is the most popular soccer video game in the world. You will most likely be choosing something for the PlayStation 4 or for the X-Box One.
And for the managers out there, it is the Football Manager game for the PC or Mac. This is incredible. You will probably not see the person for weeks or months.
The Next Level Up
Okay if you are really serious and want to splash the cash then we get to the next level of presents.
Tickets to matches
English Premier League matches are very expensive and can be hard to get. My cousin who lives in Leicester, the current Premier League Champions and who has supported them for years had to travel all the way to Liverpool just to get to see his team play because it was almost impossible to get a home team ticket!
If you can manage a ticket, or a pair of tickets, try and get a prestige game. So if your fan supports Manchester United, they would much prefer to see Manchester United v Manchester City or Manchester United v Liverpool in the Premier League than they would Manchester United v Bournemouth or some smaller team.
Also the competition matters. The more prestigious the competition – the Premier League or the Champions League the better.
And there are some fixtures – international matches – which are once in a lifetime events. In particular – El Clasico – Real Madrid v Barcelona. If you can get a ticket and the travel and accommodation for one of these games it would make their dreams come true.
The same for the World Cup Final. Or Champions League Final. These are the two biggest alongside El Clasico. But that is mega money spend!
Stadium Visits
On a slightly cheaper note, you can arrange for your football fan to have a stadium tour e.g. going to Old Trafford – Manchester United’s ground or the Camp Nou in Barcelona which has I believe it is 10,000 to 15,000 visitors per day.
There are official stadium guides and the fans get to visit the changing rooms, the insides and outsides of the stadium as well.
Book Signings
Another nice idea for a football gift is if a player is doing a book signing, you could take your fan with you and queue for a long time but get to meet the player.
Summary
So here we have covered a lot of gift options for your soccer fan. I have tried to explain a bit more about soccer and how important it is to get the club or the player they love right.
Post a comment if you have any other questions or comments. We will be setting up a Destination Soccer shop in the coming weeks so you can choose something directly from the store. Or e-mail us at info@destinationsoccer.com with the details about your soccer fan you want to buy a present for and we will try and come up with some ideas
The post How to buy the perfect present for a football fan appeared first on Destination Soccer.
