Martinique

 

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vs. Curacao (1:0) | CONCACAF Nations League | 2023 in Martinique

Martinique is another team that is a full member of CONCACAF, but is not a FIFA member, yet. Unlike the British and Dutch colonies in the Caribbean, the French colonies (Martinique, Guadeloupe, French Guyana) somehow never made it into FIFA for reasons that are beyond me or common sense. Yet, the Matinino, as the Martinique national team is known, is an active part of North American football for decades, joining CONCACAF as an observer as early as 1983 and becoming a full member in 2013. In 1993, they even won the Caribbean Cup, becoming the first non-independent country to do so and remaining the only one, until Curacao followed into their footsteps in 2017.

Obviously, given their status and history, I was always keen on getting a shirt of Martinique. But that was everything but easy for most of the time. They never sold kits and were incredibly hard to contact for the most of the last two decades. Recently, however, the small company Ballers Pride (BP) entered a deal with them, finally making their shirts widely available. Of course, I immediately got one for around 50€. The design isn't bad, but it is not outraging either, in my opinion. From a distance, it looks merely like a red and green striped shirts, but the tiny pattern in the red give it a nice touch and feel, indeed.