Despite collecting a huge amount of kits throughout his career, Nuri Sahin has never thrown one away. Nevertheless, the collection that Sahin’s mother shared with WERDER.DE was far from the finished product. The shirt of former teammate Cristiano Ronaldo is missing, along with many others. “I have a very big family. A few of them will take a couple of shirts. Lots of them will be in circulation I’m sure,” said Werder’s #17 with a smile.
However, his own jerseys are kept in honour, “I hang my shirts on the wall in my house, above all out of respect for the clubs.” Along with former kits from Borussia Dortmund, Feyenoord, Rotterdam, Real Madrid, Liverpool and the Turkish national team, hangs one of SV Werder’s limited-edition Christmas tree kits. Former teammate and current BVB captain Marco Reus owns one of Sahin’s kits from his time at the club, which he is, “particularly proud of,” the 31-year-old admits.
Sahin had never been a collector, however, especially in the early days of his career, he was always desperate to obtain shirts from his idols. But there was one shirt that he was never able to get his hands on: Fernando Redondo. The former Real Madrid and AC Milan midfielder retired in 2004, a year before Nuri Sahin exploded onto the scene.