This vibrant caricature of a soccer team pre-match is sure to appeal to soccer and art lovers alike.  

Currently for sale at the Shop are prints of Soccer Team Preparing for the Game from Lustige Blatter (1934) by humourist Walter Trier (1890-1951). The illustration depicts a 90-degree angle of a soccer team posing for a photo before a match; the stands filled to the brim with eager fans. In Trier’s distinctive style, the players’ features are exaggerated, and the illustration is filled with bright colours. Trier created this illustration for the Berlin-based satirical magazine Lustige Blatter. 

This print is included in the Shop's Art of the Game collection, which celebrates the creative spirit and cultural impact of soccer through pieces connecting the worlds of design, sport, and contemporary culture. 

A renowned illustrator, Trier was widely known for his satirical caricatures and children’s book illustrations. Born in Prague, he first found success after moving to Berlin at the age of 20. Fleeing from Nazi Germany, Trier moved to England in 1936 and later moved to Canada in 1947. In Toronto, he continued illustrating books and designed posters for Canada Packers Limited. In 1976, the AGO received a gift from the Trier-Fodor Foundation of over 1,100 works by Trier and 345 folk toys. The gift was accompanied by an ongoing fund to support the acquisition of humorous, satirical, and illustrative art at the AGO.  

Before becoming an illustrator, Trier was, according to himself, a natural-born football player. In honour of Soccer Team Preparing for the Game, read Trier’s humorous recounting of his trajectory from soccer superstar to illustrious illustrator in this translated excerpt from the 1992 book, Trier Panoptikum. 

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I was born in Prague in 1890, at a time when the Austrian crown was worth 80 pfennigs. My father was a professional misanthrope. He told me, 'You came eight days late! It’s just like you!' and then went out to have a coffee. 

During his absence, I got acquainted with a lot of important people. I already had five brothers and sisters. We had a lively conversation and I learned a lot of new things — among them, that the Vienna Athletic Club had beaten the Prague Soccer Club by 3-0. I was terribly upset. They dosed me with valerian and oil of fennel. But it did no good. I did not calm down until one of my brothers threw a soccer ball at my stomach. 

This awakened my interest in soccer, a sport to which I devoted my energies for fifteen years. I would surely have become an international champion if my school had not stabbed me in the back. They wanted at all costs to make a scientist out of me, and made me learn the multiplication table. I can still remember some of it now. 

Later on, I became a student of the arts. When I registered at the Industrial School of Fine and Applied Arts in Prague, the secretary looked at my high school certificates and discovered that I had finished with 'satisfactory' marks in drawing, and 'excellent’ in gymnastics. He said, with tears in his eyes, “Why don't you try to be an acrobat instead?"

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Take home a copy of Walter Trier’s Soccer Team Preparing for the Game from Lustige Blatter (1934), now available in person and online at Shop AGO as part of the Art of the Game Collection.