Finland 3

Sami Hyypiä (FC Liverpool | England)
vs. Northern Ireland (1:0) | friendly 2003 in Northern Ireland

This Finland shirt is another proof that I lost the overview over my own collection, mostly because I did not blog for so long. Again, I assumed that I am still missing a Finland matchworn shirt and got this absolutely shame of a shirt to tick that box off. When I received this nightdress that Adidas once called football shirt, I realized that I already have a similarly dull, but more modern, Finland matchworn shirt.

Well, now that I have it, I obviously do appreciate it. It is part of the outstandingly ugly "net series" that Adidas provided most teams with in 2002-2004 and, in this case, is the winter edition of the shirt. Long before smart fabrics like ClimateCool and alike, Adidas invented a "winter version" and a "summer version" of this particular shirt. While the summer version does have a (here blue) piece of fabric stitched behind the (here white) mesh at the sides of the shirt and thus allowed air to get in and circulate, the winter version does have a full second (here blue) shirt inside of the visible outer (here white) shirt. Obviously, both look horrible and the trend of wearing them at least 5 sizes too large at the time made the players look even more ridiculous. Well, I don't have to wear it, luckily, but can admire its oddness instead...