Greece 4

 

Unknown Player
vs. Croatia (0:1) | World Cup Qualifier | 1997 in Greece

This shirt is frankly insane. It just breaks with all the rules of football shirts - and I bloody love it! First, it does have a massive blue stripe all over the belly, with two slimmer stripes on top and under it. This guarantees that even professional athletes will definitely look like a chubby guy having a walk. 

Then, the designers thought about the classical placement of the FA and company logo. Usually, one is on the left and the other on the right chest, of course. Diadora apparently hated it and just put their brand in the center of the shirt, while printing the FA logo straight onto the optically bulged belly. They also just printed it into the fabric, using lines that were so thin that it is basically invisible during a football match. So if you ever want to look like chubby man that loves Diadora and does not support any team (openly), go for this one! Thanks, Diadora for putting this into the world!

Greece 3

 

Unknown Player
vs. Austria (2:2) | Friendly | 2003 in Austria

Greece wears blue shirts with white or white shirts with blue, usually. I never fully understand how that works with FIFA regulations, but apparently it does. This one, as you can see, is the blue with white edition, which seems to be the away version of the 2002-2004 Greece shirt. Only in that brief period of time Le Coq Sportif equipped the team. That alone made this shirt quite interesting for me - and so I got it for about 100€ at some point. It is apparently matchworn, too, although I will never know in which match it was worn.

Hungary 3

 

Ádám Szalai (FC Schalke 04, Germany)
vs. Czech Republic (1:1) | Friendly | 2013 in Hungary

Oh, look, another red Adidas template with an Hungary badge. Showing off all the design provess of Adidas, this one at least comes with a white-green collar. It makes it 1% less boring. But it remains boring. Very boring. Yet, this is a matchworn shirt and the number and name do somehow elevate the overall appearance, making it another 2% less boring. That said, this is a 97% boring red Adidas template. Terrible, but NOT BAD for Hungary.

Hungary 2

 

Miklós Fehér (Benfica Lisbon / Portugal)
Hungary 2002 - 2004

This shirt is a very simple update to my first Hungary shirt - it is exactly the same shirt, but matchworn. I got this from a fellow collector for 70€ Euro and just snapped it up, despite doubling up my first Hungary shirt that way. 

It still is not my favourite shirt. It is a red Adidas template with a Hungary badge. But then again - every Hungary shirt since the early 1990s is a red Adidas template with a badge. I can only think of two possible explanations for that: Either Adidas hates Hungary passionately - or Hungary hates designs passionately. It might well be both, of course!

Iceland 4

 

Unknown Player
vs. Poland (0:1) | Friendly | 2000 in Poland

The Icelandic FA did send me a couple of matchworn shirts, including one from each the World Cup and the Euros. So really, I have no need for any more Iceland shirt. It is just perfect.

But, there is one exception: My weird love for smaller kit manufacturers. And Iceland had two weird shirt makers over the years: ABM and Reusch. While I am stilling looking for an ABM shirt, I now finally got a Reusch one! Adding a Reusch shirt is a bit funny for me, as the company did play a larger role in my childhood. I used to be a goalkeeper in youth football for a few years and all gloves available in Germany seem to be by Reusch - so obviously mine were. I had no clue that the company does anything else, though - and surely did not even think about Icelandic football shirts back then. 

The shirt itself is great looking, too. It does look more like a superhero cape than a football shirt - and more like a French shirt than an Iceland shirt. Yet, it does work quite well, in my opinion. It is one of those vintage 1990s designs I would love to see making a comeback - and thus surely it will never make a comeback.

Israel 3

 

Unknown Player
vs. Switzerland (0:0) | World Cup Qualifier | 2009 in Switzerland

This is not the most exciting shirt, isn't it? It is a blue template by Adidas, badged up and with some more batches on the sleeve. Even the number font is just plain boring and as now one could be bothered to add any level of care into this shirt, they just left out names alltogether. Yet, when I was offered this shirt for 70€, I had to grab it. Israel matchworn shirts still tend to be kind of rare, so I am happy to get a second a bit more recent one.

Italy 2

 

Salvatore Schillaci (Juventus)
vs. USA (1:0) | World Cup | 1990 in USA

When I started this collection, I never wanted to have an Italy shirt - clearly a bit of a conflict with the overall aim of this blog and collection. Then, I did not want to get a blue Italy shirt, for whatever reason. All that, because I did not like Italian football, at all. In my mind, Italy was a team that kept falling over the own feet to somehow get that one penalty that wins them a trophy. Anti-football at its best. I thought so, because I grew up seeing Germany lose narrowly against Italian teams that did barely try to play football in any meaningful way.

But I grew up - and I was wrong. I have since travelled to Italy repeatedly. I have made Italian friends again and again. And given how horrible the English fans behaved in 2021, I suddenly found myself in front of the TV supporting Italy to win the Euros. And they did. Genuinely, I fell in love with the country, the culture and, a little bit, even the football. I was wrong and missed out so much.

Now, when I had the chance to get this absolute beast - the legendary 1990 Italy shirt - I just had to get it. It cost me 120€ and it is probably matchworn, although I will never know for sure. Either way, it is an absolutely beautiful shirt - plain blue in a lovely tone with golden trimmings. I just love it! There is just one warning: This is not a shirt to wear. It did it, once, in Padua on a rainy day. And even then, I was sweating like hell in this polyester nightmare.

Latvia 3

 

Unknown Player
vs. Andorra (0:0) | Nations League | 2018 in Andorra

I got a wine red Latvia shirt already - and a boring white Adidas template shirt that is matchworn. Now, I own a second boring white Adidas template that was worn in a match. The reason I got this is simply: The Latvian FA has a new logo and I wanted to add this to my collection, when I got the shirt. This shirt also just set me back about 80€, so it wasn't a bad deal, either. Unless I get the chance to get my hands on a nice wine red matchworn shirt, however, I guess I am done with Latvia for now.

Lithuania 2

 

Unknown Player
vs. Latvia (2:0) | Baltic Cup | 2005 in Lithuania

While my first Lithuania shirt did come with a player print, it was not matchworn. Naturally, I thus went on a bit of a hunt to get a Lithuania matchworn shirt, which I eventually did. This particular one is a very rare Hummel design that Lithuania, to the best of knowledge, only ever wore once: In the Baltic Cup 2005. That Baltic Cup was a bit of a weird "tournament", as Estonia withdrew from the tournament and it was thus reduced to a single match between Lithuania and Latvia. However, to reframe that a bit more positively: I got a matchworn Lithuania shirt from a match that won them a trophy! Not bad, huh?

I got this shirt from a fellow collector for a mere 80€, which is a fair price for a Lithuania matchworn shirt, I guess. Apart from the joy of owning a Lithuania matchworn shirt, this one also has a decent design, in my opinion. It is not overly exciting, but the colour combination and the Hummels details to make it nice enough for a Baltic shirt from the early 21th century.

Luxembourg 4

 

Tim Hall (Karpaty Lviv, Ukraine)
vs. Serbia (2:3) | Euros Qualifier | 2019 in Serbia

This is an incredibly boring plain white Luxembourg shirt. It was part of the Kit Assistance Scheme of UEFA, in which smaller national teams are getting bespoke shirt designs by a manufacturer for a period of four years. From 2018 to 2022, Macron got that deal, and threw this boring shirt to Luxembourg as a result. In honesty, a disappointed. I still got it, as they were knocked of for about 20€ at some point, and I pretty much love Luxembourg, which used to be my adopted home team. I went to a couple of matches of them a few years back and just had a great time there.

The player in the match pic has a career that gives a bit of an idea of the issues you have playing in such a tiny state like Luxembourg. In his youth career alone, he already played in three countries - Luxembourg, Belgium and Germany. All the clubs have really been in commuting distance, though. Apparently, he liked jumping around different countries and got a bit mad with it in the following, moving to Ukraine, Portugal, Poland, Cyprus, Hungary and Vietnam later, in that order. 

Macedonia 12

 

Goran Pandev (Genoa CFC, Italy)
vs. Israel (1:2) | World Cup Qualifier | 2016 in Macedonia

Look, a lot of my fellow collectors are mocking me for having 12 Belarus shirts. They argue that is too much for a random East European country that is not particularly great in football. They claim I am weirdly obsessed with Belorussian football. But the joke is on them - because now, I also own 12 (North) Macedonia shirts, proving that it is totally adequate, normal and not at all obsessive to own 12 shirts of a random East European national team! Ha!

Jokes aside, this is actually a shirt I really wanted to add to my collection. It is the design JAKO made for Macedonia in 2016 and that the team wore unusually long until 2021 when it was meant to be replaced. Following fan protests against the new shirts, they kept wearing this one until 2023, making it probably the longest worn European national team shirt design in the 21st century (for the design that was protested against, see "Macedonia 9". The picture above shows the first time the shirt was worn, in a lost qualifier match vs. Israel.

This particular shirt was also worn by Daniel Avramovski, who is quite an unusual national team player, at least for a European side. In his 15 years long career, he never managed to play more than 40 games for any club, played in 4 former Yugoslav Republics (Macedonia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Slovenia) and 1 former Autonomous Province of Yugoslavia (Vojvodina). He also played in Turkey, were he is still active in the second division. Not a career at the top of European football, but certainly an interesting one. Even better, though: Despite never making it to a top league, he did feature at the Euros, playing 15 minutes against Ukraine at the 2021 Euros.

Macedonia 11

 

Unknown Players
vs. China (0:2) | Friendly | 2014 in China

For a perfect text to go with this shirt, please check "Macedonia 10" and replace the word "yellow" by "white".

Macedonia 10

 

Unknown Players
vs. Slovakia (0:1) | European Qualifiers | 2010 in Slovakia

I have nine (North) Macedonia national team shirts. Yet, I somehow decided to buy this boring yellow shirt. It just cost me 20€, but still, I cannot even pretend to have a good reason for it. Macedonia is a nice country and one I have visited twice, but not even that can justify buying it. So I won't even try and let you scroll on now.