Nacktionalmannschaft is a German pun that means “Nude national team”. It is a team which comprises of both males and females footballers. The team is gradually growing into prominence in German football especially in the last two years.
Unlike a regular football team, Nacktionalmannschaft plays football games completely naked. The only sportswear they put on are boots and socks.
Recently, the nude team took on a clothed team in Duisburg, Germany known as Pottoriginale All-Stars.
During the match, Nacktionalmannschaft presented a team of 11 naked players against Pottoriginale’s team of 11 clothed players. After 90 minutes of football, the game ended 8-8.
For the first time since the formation of the German nude national team, the nude team played in the presence of 300 spectators.
The organizer of Nacktionalmannschaft is a 34-year-old German artist and filmmaker Gerrit Starczewski.
In the build-up to the game that ended 8-8, Gerrit described the match as a “game such as there has never been before in the vastness of the football planet – a team in jerseys against a nude 11.”
The 34-year-old German filmmaker went on to also describe the match as “a furious display of artistry for connoisseurs.”
On the fact that the nude team played against a team in jerseys, Gerrit said: “The fact that a team plays in jerseys brings out the contrast and the aesthetics of the sober naked body even more intensely.
After the 8-8 draw the filmmaker described the game as an extremely high-scoring game, adding that it was a “great day” for Nacktionalmannschaft and their opponents Pottoriginale.
Gerrit Starczewski organized the game to raise money to defend a lawsuit an amateur footballer whose surname is Ficken brought against him for violating his privacy after his ID card was displayed in a documentary in 2017.
In 2020, the filmmaker organized a nude team to play against another nude team in Germany to protest against the commercialization of football. The players used the game to urge the German national team to boycott the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar.
According to Gerrit, the dream is to make Nacktionalmannschaft an international phenomenon that would travel across the world. “The big dream is to go on trips with it”, he added.
