Samstag, 27. August 2016

Gambia



Bubacarr Trawally (Yanbian Changbaishan, CHN)
Namibia vs. Gambia (2:1) | WC 2018 qualifiers | 2016 in Namibia

Kudos to Mr Jakob de Freitas from the UK! I massively thank him for this georgous find! While I am searching for a Gambia shirt forever and pestered the FA at least 20 times and never got any help of them, Jakob dropped them a mail and not got a single Gambia shirt, but 3 of them - all matchworn of course from the latest World Cup qualifier vs. Namibia.
They lost the knock out match vs Namibia and thus those kits will be the only Gambian shirts with the "Russia 2018" patch. Useless to mention that this is of course the first shirt I have from exactly that qualifier and it is always nice to add another patch of course.
Thanks again Jakob, I really appreciate it a lot!

Netherlands



Khalid Boulahrouz (Hamburger SV, GER)
Netherlands vs. England (0:0) | friendly 2005 in England
Regular leaders of my blog will realize that I kind of broke my last still standing rule, the "no Dutch shirt" rule I set to myself. In the same time they will also realize that I could hereby add another Stand Up Against Racism shirt to my collection. Together with Portugal and Brazil I now hold three times an identical kit and only the Russian one is missing now (does anyone have it? Let me know!).
I still feel a bit bad about breaking the Dutch rule, but hey, at least it is not Oranje ;)

Ryukyu



Ryukyu vs. Taiwanese Aboriginals | friendly 2015 in Taiwan
Another overwhelmingly black non-FIFA, but one I got in person from the president of the FA. He handed it over to me in the middle of our both living places, in Abkhazia! A meeting between a German and a Japanese in Abkhazia does not sound very logical to you? Well, I am the general secretary of CONIFA, the biggest non-FIFA governing body and Mr Miyagi, the president of Ryukyu FA, is managing one of the members of CONIFA. Other than that, Abkhazia hosted (and won) the World Football Cup this year in Sukhum and Gagra.
Ryukyu did not play in the tournament itself, but Mr Miyagi came with the delegation of another Japan based team - a united Koreans in Japan national team - to see how CONIFA and it's tournament are like.
As a guest present he brought me this absolutely cracking shirtof his Okinawa based national team, which already was active in pre-CONIFA times, for example playing an indigenous Taiwanese team in their homeland.

Comoros 2



Comoros vs. Botswana (1:0) | CAF 2017 qualifier | 2016 in Comoros
Sometimes in the life of a shirt collector thing happen that are simultaneously absolutely wonderful and in the same time quite cruel. When maana sport designed this awesome shirt and made it publicly available through a France-based webshop it was like Christmas and Easter falling on the same day to me. I mean, look at this beauty! Compare it to the dull first Comoros shirt I have. It is simply an amazing shirt and it is amazing that shirts of a not-so-powerhouse in Africa is now easily available.
On the other side it kind of devaluates my first Comoros shirt. But seriously, I don't mind. We all know that I would never sell it anyways!
I cannot do this post without mentioning the above pictured match. It was the first match Comoros won for ages, mainly thanks to a ridicolous rainfall, which can be guessed on the above picture. Actually there was about 10cm of water on the pitch!

Cambodia 2



Sok Rithy (Nagaworld FC)
Cambodia vs. Singapore (0:4) | WC 2018 qualifier | 2015 in Cambodia
I will not go into detail about this shirt. Actually you could write books about this shirt and it's legitimicy. As others did that before, I will just leave it. Just in short: As you see, this one has an additional FA logo on it, compared to the picture of Nagaworlds superstar Mr. Sok above.
I personally count this shirt at least as an "official replica" as my friend Martin F. bought it in the official fansho (the only one!) in Phnomh Penh. The shop is a FBT shop inside the national stadium and is listed as official on the homepage of the Cambodian FA.
Thanks Martin for bringing this great shirt with you for the bargain of about 20€ once again!

Corsica



Johan Cavalli (AC Ajaccio)
Corsica vs. Bulgaria (1-0) | friendly 2011 in Corsica
Despite the extremely plain and far too classic design (for my taste) I am quite happy to get this extremely rare non-FIFA outfit. Never ask me how, but a friend of mine from Slovenia got even two of such shirts and happily sent me one as a swap for nearly all the shorts I had (I am not really into shorts to be fair).
Amongst other matches the Corsican team wore this full black design in a friendly match vs. Bulgaria in 2011. I never understood how some non-FIFA teams can play FIFA countries, while others (like Srpska) are strictly forbidden to ever do so. If anyone has any logical explanation I am waiting for your mails anytime ;)

Moldova 3



Andrian Cascaval (Dinamo-Auto Tiraspol)
Moldova vs. Switzerland (1:2) | friendly 2016 in Switzerland
Even though there is no technical different between this shirt and my second Moldova shirt (except this one is the away version, while the other the home version, obviously), but other than my second Moldova shirt, this one is matchworn. It was worn in a friendly in Croatia, just before the Euros 2016 in France, which Croatia won 1:0 unsurprisingly.
What makes this shirt most interesting to me is surely that it was worn by Andrian Cascaval, a player I personally met tipsy on the streets of Tiraspol during the summer break of the Moldovan league in 2015. It was quite funny as I was out drinking with the manager and CEO of Dinamo-Auto and he kind of lectured his player jokingly, before telling him to enjoy the night now the season is over.
So, you see, the world is small. a year later this shirt was offered to me by a friend having contacts in the Croatian FA and when I researched the player I just recognized him as the "tipsy guy in Tiraspol" ;)

Bulgaria 4


 
Valeri Bojinov (US Lecce, ITA)
Bulgaria vs. Serbia and Montenegro (0:0) | friendly 2005 in Bulgaria

Even though this is my fourth Bulgaria shirt, it is kind of a special one. It comes with a patch on it's shoulder, which is new to my collection! And actually, if we are overly precisely it is not even a Bulgarian national team shirt. The patch indicates that this shirt is actually from the UEFA Regions Cup, a European amateur tournament, in which youth regional selection play each others. As one region of every UEFA member participates, they usually wear the current national team shirt of their country.
In this case the shirt was worn by "South-West Sofia", representing Bulgaria in the 2005 Regions Cup edition. They did extremely well, coming second after a 0:1 final loss to the Basque Country, representing Spain (politically a weird idea!).
I purchased the shirt for as little as 27,11€ on German ebay and as it is definitely worn by the team, I will simply count it as a matchworn Bulgaria shirt until I find something better ;)

France 3



in centre: Anthony Le Tallec (AFC Sunderland, ENG)
France U21 vs. Ireland U21 | U21 Euros 2006 qualifiers | 2005 in Ireland
One more shirt from the utterly ridicolous "thong template" from Adidas! This time, however, a matchworn one. I bought this shirt straight from someone working for the Irish Football Association. He again received the shirt from the French side after an Under-21 Euro qualifier match in Dublin in 2005.
I am frankly speaking not a huge fan of that design, but it is another great matchworn addition to my collection.

Bhutan 2



Man Bahadur Gurung (Thimphu City)
Bhutan vs. Afghanistan (0:3) | SAFF Cup 2015 | 2015 in India
Like my first Bhutan shirt, this one is matchworn during the SAFF Cup, a regional Southern Asian Championship played every other year. Once again Bhutan did lose all their group stage matches (including a 0:3 vs. Afghanistan, pictured above) this time (2015), just like they did 6 years earlier (2009).
Again like my first shirt this one is the amazingly orange coloured home outfit, this time made by Ego Sport, a Chinese sports apparel manufacturer.
Straight from Bhutan my fellow German collector Andreas bought this shirt and got it send to him, before swapping it with me. While I did not really have a strong need to add, I just couldn't resist and looking to the blogs of my mates Joe, Eric or Nick I have to ask: Which collector ever could!

Freitag, 26. August 2016

El Salvador



Xavier Garcia (CD FAS)
El Salvador vs. Costa Rica (1:1) | Gold Cup 2015 | 2015 in USA
While it is extremely easy to get a shirt of the "La Selecta" it is extremely hard to get a an original shirt of them. Especially the US-American eBay is seriously flooded with about 100 fakes at any time.
After many years of looking out for an El Salvador shirt I recently finally found one for as little as 33€ including shipping. Actually I bought a totally different design of the team, but the seller made a listing mistake and was out of stock with this older design. Fair enough, he offered to send me their latest shirts, which he usually sells for about double the price.
Unfortunately El Salvador stopped having amazing sublimated prints all over the shirt and turned to a design, which could be friendly described as "classic", or boring.

Ivory Coast 3



Didier Drogba (FC Chelsea, ENG)
Ivory Coast vs. Portugal (0:0) | WC 2010 in South Africa
Another very rare and nice matchworn shirt from an African giant from a reliable source! I always preferred the Black Stars of Ghana, not the Ivory Coast, but obviously there is no way to deny that they are amongst the grands in Africa for a whole era now. While individuals like Drogba, Salomon Kalou, Gervinho and Wilfried Bony always convinced and inspired me alot, but they never seemed to be a proper team to me, unfortunately. In addition, Ivory Coast always was extremely unlucky with draws for World Cups, ending in a group Argentina, the Netherlands and Serbia&Montenegro in 2006 and with Portugal and Brazil in 2010, when the best Ivorian generation was at its peak.
I purchased the team on eBay for 75€ including shipment. The source was extremely trustful as he claimed to me that he is a private friend of Guy Demel, who also signed the shirt, and sold about 20 shirts of this particular player. Given the low profile of Demel I see little to no reason for this story to be fake and thus believe in the shirt to be fully legit.