Orange on the arm — and 74 other countries

That is down to one club. An amateur club with a large Czech contingent ordered them first for the captain, then for the whole team, and then for the youth tournament they organise every year. It often goes like that: a country band is rarely just a band for the captain. It is a way of showing where you come from, or where your grandparents come from.

A flag is made to be recognised from afar — big areas, few colours. Exactly what works best on a band eight centimetres wide. Small details vanish on the arm; the tricolour does not. For Spain we kept the coat of arms because it looks bare without it, but we made it bigger than on the real flag. It has to be right on the arm, not on paper.

Every country band can be ordered as it is. But you can also open it in the designer and put a name on it, a shirt number, or the year of the tournament. That turns a band into a memory — and you will not get that out of your captain's bag again.