Sports and fashion might seem poles apart, but they’re actually as inseparable as mortar and pestle. For one, they’re both into balls — only that in fashion, a “ball” means the Met Gala or a charity ball.

Athleisure, the ‘90s baseball jersey and cap, the tennis skirt, the basketball jersey rapper look — these are just some of sports’ influences in fashion that have become style staples. Even sports legends like Rene Lacoste, Arnold Palmer and Serena Williams have launched their own fashion brands, while other sports champions such as Roger Federer, Kobe Bryant and Lewis Hamilton have collaborated with brands ranging from athletic ones like Nike and Adidas, to luxury ones like Louis Vuitton and Dior. Just like the Hermes Birkin, Air Jordans continue to appreciate in value, selling for 10 to 100 times their original prices. 

Lately, with the rising popularity of soccer or football, official Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) World Cup merchandise have become among the hottest and most-coveted collectibles for fans and non-fans alike. 

Athletes, too, have surpassed other multimedia personalities as the most preferred brand ambassadors and influencers. Portuguese football star Cristiano Ronaldo, for instance, is the most-followed person in the world, holding over one billion followers across all major social media platforms combined.

GoTyme Bank chief executive officer Nate Clarke, in a recent press conference, said that the World Cup is one of the most-widely watched sporting events in history, and “this year’s event is expected to have more viewers around the world than any event in the history of humankind ever.”

Hosted across the United States, Mexico and Canada, the tournament will feature a record-breaking 48 teams competing in 104 matches. FIFA projects that billions of viewers around the world will tune in via broadcast and streaming, potentially setting new global viewership records.

My family and I are not avid football fans. I got into the college football team but I hid a lot from the team due to conflict of schedule with my job as a working scholar. My husband, meanwhile, was part of the seminary football team together with Indonesian players. Thus, when we went to Madrid and Barcelona early this month, we came right in time to absorb the high energy from these football capitals. 

While trying to book tickets for a match between Real Madrid and FC Barcelona, we found out that the tickets for four of us in the family would cost nearly P300,000 because it was the second El Clasico match between the rival teams for the 2025/26 La Liga season. According to a guide, ticket prices for a World Cup match depend on the kind of game and the popularity of the teams in the match. 

Thus, we settled for a peek at the massive red, blue and yellow Spotify Camp Nou stadium of FC Barcelona off the city center from our car on the way out of Barcelona for Andorra. 

Fortunately, we were able to secure tickets to the highly in-demand tour of Real Madrid’s Santiago Bernabéu Stadium in Madrid. Days before the tour, we got ourselves personalized Real Madrid official jerseys at the official FC store in Madrid’s shopping center, Puerta del Sol, which is about 15 to 20 minutes walk to the biggest Zara in the world in Plaza de España (the Greenbelt 5 flagship store seems bigger and the designs in the Makati store are also better, to be honest. I wasn’t able to buy that much at Zara in Spain, Germany and France. I found more stylish items at H&M). 

One might be compelled to shop for the Real Madrid jerseys by color, but they actually have special meanings. Black, the first color that appealed to me, is apparently for children trainees. There are specific technical terms for each of these colors and players, but the easiest way to put it is the white ones are for the best players, the blue ones for other team players, the light blue ones for adult trainees and so forth. 

Touring the Bernabéu in our personalized jerseys makes the experience authentic. We were able to appreciate the science and artistry behind the World Cup fever. 

My husband was happy seeing even just his idol Ronaldo’s football shoes and golden footballs. More than Ronaldo’s good looks and achievements as one of the best football players in history, his life story — born in poverty and overcoming a life-threatening heart condition as a teenager that prohibited him from playing football — are the reasons my husband and many others are fans. 

As for me, I swooned over David Beckham’s football boots that make him a worthy fashion icon alongside his wife Victoria, whose elegance the
“Batang ‘90s” in me has admired since her Spice Girls days.

During the stadium tour, we were able to sit not only at the bleachers, but also at the very benches where Beckham, Ronaldo and other Real Madrid superstars sat during matches. We felt like stalkers as we gazed upon the football club’s trophies, gym, recovery room, VIP room that is more like a fine-dining restaurant and, most especially, locker room where they get uniforms on-demand, like soda from a vendo machine. Of course, there are several photo booths were you can hold and take pictures with an actual World Cup trophy and even make yourself look like in the same picture as Real Madrid players.

We also toured several palaces such as the Madrid royal palace and Chateau de Versailles in France, but the 38,000-seater Bernabéu, I would say, is even grander and bigger than those castles and palaces, proving that football stars are already today’s royalties. 

At the same time, I feel sad for our Team Philippines football team. Even the souvenir jerseys we bought are of higher quality than what our athletes would usually wear. Touring the Bernabéu made me realize just how much deprived our athletes are in terms of training and support.