Cotton is what everyone wants to hear.
Say a garment is 100% cotton and people relax. It sounds natural, breathable, honest. Say it is a blend and there is a small flinch, because blend has come to mean cheaper, and often it does.
So I want to explain why this one is not cotton, because we did actually make it in cotton first and I have worn both.
The cotton one
I had samples made by two different manufacturers. One came back in straight cotton.
On paper it should have been the right answer. In my hands it was not.
It was heavy. Not sturdy-heavy in a way that felt like quality, just heavy. It was stiff, and it hung off the shoulders rather than falling. The best way I can describe it is that it sat like a box. There was no drape to it at all.
And it was hot. I was standing in my own house, indoors, not doing anything, and I was starting to sweat in it. Cotton that thick traps heat and holds onto moisture instead of moving it anywhere. If that is what it does in a bedroom, I did not want to think about what it does outside in July.
I really wanted that sample to work. It did not.
The other one
The second sample came back in a viscose and nylon blend with a small amount of polyester in it.
I picked it up and the difference was immediate.
It falls instead of hanging. That sounds like a small thing and it is the whole thing. A shirt that drapes moves with you and settles where it should. A shirt that hangs sits on you like it was placed there. Same pattern, same cut, completely different garment.
It is light. Genuinely light enough to wear through summer without thinking about it, which was the entire point.
And the embroidery does not fight it. On the cotton sample the stitching stiffened the area around it, so the crest sat like a hard patch on a hard shirt. On the blend, the fabric stays soft right up to the edge of the stitch. You can feel the embroidery with your thumb without the shirt going rigid around it.
That was the moment I knew. Not a spreadsheet, not a spec sheet. Just holding both of them and knowing which one I would actually want to wear.
So what is in it
Viscose, nylon, and a small amount of polyester. What each one is doing is worth knowing.
Viscose is what gives it the drape and the soft hand feel. It is made from plant cellulose and it behaves more like silk than like a synthetic. Nylon is what gives it strength and holds the knit structure, so the shirt keeps its shape instead of stretching out at the collar and hem. The small amount of polyester helps it hold the jacquard pattern cleanly and resist creasing.
Take any one of those out and it becomes a worse shirt.
So this is not a blend to save money. This is a blend because we made the cotton version, put it on, and it was the worse product. I would rather tell you that than pretend cotton was never on the table.
The collar
One more thing, because it says something about how this went.
The first blend sample was almost right. Fabric, weight, drape, embroidery, all of it. The one thing off was the collar opening, which was slightly too wide. Not dramatically. Enough that it did not sit the way I wanted at the neck.
So we narrowed it and did another sample. That version is the one we shipped.
It is a small detail and nobody would have complained about the first one. But it is the difference between something being fine and something being right, and at this size that is the only real advantage I have.
Thread and fabric
The crest and the numbers are made two completely different ways, and most people never notice.
The crest is thread. It is dense satin stitch embroidery, where thread covers the whole area with a stabiliser behind it. That is what makes it firm to the touch, the same feel as an embroidered badge on a proper kit.
The numbers are fabric. That is tackle twill appliqué, where a piece of twill is cut to the shape of the number and stitched down around its edge. Because it is mostly fabric rather than thread, it stays flexible. It bends and moves with the shirt instead of stiffening a whole panel of it.
It is the same technique used on American football and baseball jerseys, which is why it reads as genuinely athletic rather than decorative.
If both had been done as dense embroidery, the front and back of the shirt would have gone rigid and the drape we just spent all this effort on would have been wasted. Firm where it should be firm, flexible where it needs to move.
Why any of this mattered to me
When I put this shirt on I think about Ronaldo.
Not the global figure he is now. The version wearing 17 for Portugal when he was young, before all of it, when you could tell something was coming but nobody knew how far it would go. I grew up on that. Watching him is a big part of why I love this sport at all.
I did not want a t-shirt with his face on it. I wanted something that carried what that era felt like, that I could wear on a normal day, that did not look like I was on my way to a match.
That is what all of this was for. The samples, the collar, the fabric arguments. Getting to something worth putting your own memories into.
Everybody has a player like that. It does not have to be mine.
Have a look at the Portugal No. 17 or the Argentina No. 10, and if you want to know how to look after it, the care guide covers everything.