Collecting national team shirts from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe.
Another matchworn Gambian shirt thanks to the Latic Dagger whose impressive collection you can see here. Jakob has had a recent habit of being able to source rare african national shirts. This one I received in a trade for one of my many Bhutan shirts.
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A beautiful Slovakia shirt here, match worn from the 1996 European championships Qualifier away to Israel. This came from the same source as my matchworn Lithuania shirt, although this one appears to have been sent to me in error. I actually purchased a Luxembourg shirt, and having paid more than £80 in customs fees I’m reluctant to return it.
I’ve already got a couple of Lithuania football shirts. This lovely laced up Diadora effort as seen during their friendly with Brazil in 1996, and a more recent understated Hummel shirt from 2004. However, since completing the set of 211 FIFA national shirts I have been looking to improve my collection, and this shirt ticks two boxes in it being both match worn, and being an extremely rare design.
The shirt was used during the 1994 Baltic Cup where Lithuania thrashed Estonia 3-0, and scraped a 1-0 win in the decider against Latvia. More importantly it was used when Lithuania played Israel in a friendly in 1996 and was swapped with Moshe Glam, and appeared for sale on eBay among a horde of Israeli sporting memorabilia.
If anyone find any better photos or footage of the 1994 Baltic Cup, or of the Lithuania vs Israel friendly match then please let me know!
Tanzania was at one time one of the hardest shirts to obtain, a market flooded with fakes Adidas shirts, and lots of awful shirts by a company called ‘Skies’ that were never used by the team. Recently Jakob (who’s awesome collection you can see here) has started to crack some of the more difficult countries including The Gambia and Tanzania. Having obtained last season’s shirts from the Tanzania FA I asked if he would be able to repeat the trick, and sure enough a parcel arrived from Tanzania a few days later.
This Kelme design was used exclusively at the 2013 CECAFA Cup. It was used againast South Sudan in teh group stages, and in the final against Sudan as they won the cup for the 19th time.
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Another matchworn shirt from a Malta friendly, this time Czech Republic worn by former Slavia Pragua Midfielder Jaroslav Cerny (not to be confused with Jaroslav Cerny the Egyptologist). Another shirt with match details, and another shirt from the Malta kitman.
Another player issue shirt from the Malta kit man, and the first in my collection to be complete with match details. Ireland thrashed malta 5-0 on the 14th October 1998 in a Euro 2000 qualifier, although unfortunately no player wore (or were allocated) the number 24. It is likely that this was kept as a spare, so obviously not match worn, but its great to have a shirt with match details in the collection. Particularly an Ireland shirt whose replicas tend to have sponsor on.
9 years ago I started a mission to collect the national shirts of all of FIFA’s 208 members (now 211), Estonia seemingly want to play against all of FIFA’s members. They were proudly the only national team to have played against every other UEFA member, and quickly secured a friendly against Gibraltar when they joined. Since then they’ve also played St Kitts & Nevis from the Caribbean, as well as embarking on a tour of the pacific islands with friendlies against New Caledonia, Fiji and Vanuatu.
This shirt was obtained via the Malta kit man, so presumably used by Sandir Puri in their 2016 friendly. Puri currently plys his trade in Ireland with Waterford his second Irish club after Sligo Rovers. He’s previously spent time in Scotland, England, Czech Republic, Finland, Estonia, Greece, Poland and Hungary, as well as having trials with Celtic and Borussia Dortmund.
The hedgehog on the back is a recent addition to the Estonia shirts. It’s supposed to be a metaphor for how they maybe tiny, but can be dangerous (or just massive pricks?).
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England wore this shirt as they beat rivals Germany at Euro 200. Unfortunately both England and Germany exited at the group stages behind Portugal and Romania. This shirt itself is player issue, and came from a member of the England coaching staff, however details are a little sketchy as to which match, at which level, and who wore it.
Matchworn Oman shirt used in November’s Asia Cup Qualifer against Bhutan. Oman ran out 4-2 winners as they qualified for the 2019 Asia Cup. Bhutan on the other hand have lost all 5 matches so far with three narrow home defeats, and a couple of tonkings away from hom.
