After the Whistle
Shkodran Mustafi on life after football, when you retire at 32 years old
The Mustafi Collection
Ask Shkodran Mustafi about the 2014 World Cup final and he will talk about it, the way everyone does. But go a little deeper, and he will tell you what it actually felt like to become world champion. Coming home to streets packed with people who had waited up just to see his arrival. Six years into his career, and it was the first time the scale of it all actually hit him.
That was over a decade ago. These days Mustafi trades matchdays for something quieter. He hung up his boots at 32, after stops at Sampdoria, Valencia, Arsenal, and Schalke 04, and now coaches Germany's U17 team for the DFB. Ask if retirement freed up his schedule and he laughs. "The opposite," he says.
It is also, unexpectedly, how he ended up designing his own capsule collection. His name came up early in our talks about who should front our first German collection, and once we reached out, things moved fast. Within two days, Mustafi and his wife had booked flights to meet us in person. We shot the collection in Switzerland, and somewhere between takes, he sat down with us to talk about football, fatherhood, and the exact age he stopped needing logos.
Shkodran Mustafi, born April 17, 1992, is a German former centre-back who won the 2014 World Cup and the 2017 Confederations Cup with Germany. He played for Sampdoria, Valencia, Arsenal, Schalke 04, and Levante before retiring from playing, aged 32. He now coaches Germany's U17 national team for the DFB.
"Honestly, no, if anything it's the opposite. I thought the same thing everyone else does, that I'd finally get my life back, maybe even get a bit bored. Everyone warns you about that, players who don't know what to do with themselves once the routine disappears. It hasn't worked out that way for me at all. One week I'm with the DFB, the next I'm at a Bundesliga match, then there's a scouting trip, then I'm flying across the world to work as an expert at the World Cup, and somehow there's always another game after that. The hard part isn't filling the days anymore, it's figuring out what to say no to."
"Yes, more than people expect, actually. Not the games themselves so much, but more the simplicity of it all. Someone told you when to eat, when to sleep, when to train, what plane to be on, and honestly, some days that used to drive me a little crazy. But there was also something nice about not having to think about any of it. These days I'd genuinely give anything for someone to just hand me a schedule and say, here, this is your day, go."
“Someone told you when to eat, when to sleep, when to train, what plane to be on. I'd give anything now for someone to just hand me a schedule.”
"Ha, honestly, a bit of a disaster if I'm being real with you. Logos everywhere, on absolutely everything. Louis Vuitton and Ferraris. Back then it was more about having, than wanting. New launch? I had to have it. Clothes I wore exactly once and then forgot about completely and lots that still have the tag on them. At one point I had 70 pairs of the same Louboutin Sneaker, in every color imaginable. And the joke of it all? I only wore workout clothes every day. I look back at photos from that time now and I actually laugh, because I thought I looked incredible, and really I just had a bunch of random clothes that didn't fit together."
"A car, actually, that was the big one. My mom was not happy about it at all. She wanted me to buy an apartment with that money, something sensible but I don't regret it. I still love that car."
"Slowly, and not really all at once. Somewhere around 28 or 29. You stop needing to prove something to people you don't even know. These days half of what I wear has no branding on it at all, and honestly, I prefer it that way. If you have to tell people what you're wearing for it to mean something, it's probably the wrong thing to be wearing in the first place."
"Comfort, above everything else. That's really the whole test for me these days. You put something on and you just don't think about it again for the rest of the day."
"You're putting me on the spot here, that's a hard question. I think if I really have to pick I'd pick the green jacket. It's a perfect layering piece. But I do love every piece we designed."
It is the same thinking behind the capsule he built with LABFRESH: fewer statements, better fundamentals, nothing louder than it needs to be. Just the pieces he would actually reach for.
“The perfect capsule isn't about showing who you are. It's about knowing who you are.”
The Mustafi Collection
Fewer statements. Better fundamentals. Just the pieces he'd actually reach for.
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