Summary
FC Weirdo
New designs
Prince
Letters
Champ

Goal

Names on sports shirts are always printed apart from shirt numbers. Most of the times they are displayed above the number. Furthermore, the size is much smaller; numbers measure about 25 cm. in height and names about 6 cm. Consequently the typeface used for names doesn't have to be the same as that used for the numbers.
The letters I designed are related to the numbers of Prince, but the stroke contrast is minimized: in the letters all strokes seem to have the same weight, while the numbers have a visible stroke contrast.
The width of the letters is relatively small, for the practical reason that long names have to fit on the shirt.
But in the mean time a short name must look nice. This problem was illustrated by the team of PSV (Eindhoven, Netherlands) in 2004-2005, with a player named LEE as well as one named VENNEGOOR OF HESSELINK. In this case the exceptionally long name was horizontally squeezed.
Partly, this problem can be solved by designing a typeface that has a regular version, but also a condensed one and an extra condensed. But extra condensed typefaces are difficult to read, so I would plead for a maximum length of player's names of, let's say, ten characters. As a conseqeunce Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink would have to choose to just use VENNEGOOR. Or he should - just as many Brazilian players - play with his first name on his back instead of his last name. An alternative could be to use his nickname LANGE JAN. A Dutch predecessor for this approch is Giovanni van Bronkhorst, who plays with the name GIO on his back.