There is a version of national shirt design where every cycle brings a new pattern, a new collar shape and a new experiment. Germany has largely opted out. The design changes at the margins and the identity does not move at all.

For a buyer this is straightforwardly good news. A Germany shirt bought this year will not look like a mistake in five years, because it does not look like this year.

The problem with most football shirts as clothing is that they announce themselves: a sponsor across the chest, a busy pattern, a colour nobody wears. A Germany shirt has one strong trim on a white body and nothing else competing.

It is also the safest of the national shirts to give someone who is not a football person. It reads as a white shirt first.

If you want a Germany shirt that is visually interesting rather than reliably correct, the away design is where to look. That is where the experiments go, and German away shirts have produced some of the more striking designs of the last two decades.

The trade-off is that an away design dates. That is fine if you are buying to wear now and less fine if you are buying to keep.

If someone in your life does not own a football shirt and you want to fix that, this is the one. It is quiet, it fits normally, and it does not require the recipient to have an opinion about a season.

Sizing is generous — German cuts are roomier than Italian ones, and the national shirt follows the same logic. Your usual size will be right.