Until 1976, the Argentine national team did not have a shield; it arrived thanks to the sports journalist and graphic designer Norberto “Toto” Rud.
The trigger for all this was black and white television. On black and white TV, only light colors were visible. If two teams played with light-colored shirts, it was difficult to distinguish them. They had to put a shield on the shirt to identify the teams. “Toto” noticed that at Germany 74′, the vast majority of teams had a shield for the same reason.
In 1976, he proposed this idea to the AFA and sent them letters with shield designs, including pre-designs of the chosen shield.
At the end of November 1976, Alfredo Cantilo, president of the Argentine Football Association, accepted his suggestion and stated that the players would start using the shield he had proposed.
A few days later, Menotti’s team debuted the brand new emblem in a friendly match against the Soviet Union (now Russia).
Unlike others that have changed their appearance drastically, the shield of the Argentine national team is practically the same as the one designed in 1976. The original design was like the one our jersey has now, but at that time, it was embroidered without the laurels because the technology to do so did not exist.
In 2004, two stars were added to the shield, in reference to the World Cup titles of 1978 and 1986.
