The national shirt is the one that does not expire. A Portugal 7 is not tied to a club he might leave, and it is the version people keep longest. If you are buying one shirt, that is usually the answer.

The club shirts are the ones that carry a specific era, and that is the point of buying them. Pick the club the recipient associates him with, not the one he is at now — the memory is the product.

You do not need to know which club someone supports to buy them this shirt. You need to know that they have heard of football. That is a much lower bar than any club shirt requires, and it is why this is the most-gifted item here.

It also works across ages in a way club shirts do not. A child who does not follow a league will still know the name, which is not true of most of this catalogue.

Check what colour the name set is on the specific shirt you are buying. Printing colour varies by season and by shirt, and a dark print on a dark body is the failure mode here. Look at the listing photos before ordering.

Then the washing: inside out, cold, no tumble dryer, and never iron directly on the print. That is what keeps a name set intact — not the washing itself, but the heat.