Croatia 2

Ivan Perisic (Inter, ITA)
Croatia vs. Hungary 1:1 | friendly 2016 in Hungary

Finally a shirt with a quirky story again! I already had a "Croatia 2" shirt here and it was matchworn as well, by Josip Simunic. However I never was extremely happy as I seriously dislike Simunic for his aggressive and anti-football style of "play", mainly in the Bundesliga.
Funny enough a Croatian collector was absolutely after it. He has a collection of Simunic matchworn shirts and actually had a matchworn Simunic Croatia shirt in every single design he ever wore, except the one I had. So he was chasing for about 2 years until I finally sent him the shirt with the promise to get me a new Croatia matchworn as a replacement. It took another year or so, but finally he approached me with this beauty of a shirt. I really love that Croatia finally had some variation in their rather boring white-red chequered design.
The shirt was worn in a preparation match to the Euros 2016, where Croatia was one of the most disappointing teams to me, on the pitch as well as on the stands. It was worn in a 1:1 draw vs. Hungary, which was again one of the most positive surprises of the Euros to me.
The player who wore, Perisic, is like the total opposite to Simunic as well. He was one of the nicest guys in the Bundesliga for many years in Dortmund and Wolfsburg, before he moved on to Inter lately.

Aruba

 

Gino Mulder (Quick den Haag, NED)
Aruba vs. Antigua & Barbuda 2:1 | Carribean Cup 2017 qualifiers | 2016 in Barbuda

Bam! Finally I can tick another box! This Aruba shirt was available for quite a while already in the offical Admiral online shop. I though one was ordered for me already, but then found out that I was left out from a bulk order for some unknown reason.
So I had to take initative on my own. As Admiral does ship to Italy, but not to Germany, for whatever reasons, I had to ask my Canadian mate Eric for help. Of course he was willing to assist once again, as he always perfectly does with all the CONCACAF members. Thanks loads again for that mate!
For no particular reason I chose the number 7 of Gino Mulders, who is earning his money in Den Haag, even though for semi-pro "Quick" and not the much bigger ADO. As the national team never has names printed on the shirt I obviously decided to not have a name as well.
The design is perfectly colourful and as yellow/skyblue was always by far my favorite colour combination, I am truly in love with the shirt. I am still looking for a good reason for the red numbering, though. Any ideas?

Nigeria 2

Benedict Akwuegbu (Grazer AK, AUT)
2000, unknown match

Again this Nigeria shirt is an upgrade to the already existing one, as it, other than the first one, a matchworn piece. It came directly from Benedict Akwuegbu, who had a suitcase of old shirts at home and sold them through a good friend, who again is a shirt collector and contacted me about it. Of course I couldn't resist and took the opportunity as it is definitely not easy at all to get hold of any worn shirts from the bigger African nations!
Just like Akwuegbu I personally spent a few years of my professional life in the tiny sleepy city of Siegen, so we do have something in common. On the other, looking to Benedicts vita which includes jobs from Basingstoke, Harelbeke, Beijing and Kärnten, probably everyone finds a place he shared with him for a while.
All my thanks go to Patrick for selling off Benedicts shirt and helping me to get hold of this vintage masterpiece!

Andorra 2

 

Marco Vieira (Atletico Monzon, ESP)
Andorra vs. Russia (0:2) | Euro 2012 qualifiers | 2010 in Andorra

Even though I have a similarly dull and boring Andorra shirt already, this is quite a huge addition. Not only did it come from a good friend of mine, fellow collector Andreas and is matchworn, it only kind of "replaces" my old shirt for which I never found any match picture and thus still have doubts about.
Unfortunately the shirt is from the boring old times in Andorra, when the team only got plain templates from Adidas and alike. Nowadays they bring extremely colourful and beautiful shirts to the pitch luckily.

Haiti 2

Gloman Pierre (Football Inter Club Association)
Haiti vs. Ecuador (2:0) | Gold Cup 2002 in the USA

For no particular reason, except for this ridicolous and thus absolutely stunning design, I bought this shirt on ebay when it popped up for not more than 34€ including shipping to my door. The design was worn in the 2002 season and is made by the Spanish company Finta.
Browsing hours and hours for pictures of this design in action, and not only the team pic above, I totally failed, though. Even if the design was worn in a major event, the Gold Cup 2002, pictures of actual game scenes seem to be non existing. So I just took a very good quality screenshot of the FOX highlights from youtube.

Armenia 2

Hovhannes Hambardzumyan (FK Vardar, MAC)
France vs. Armenia (0:4) | friendly 2015 in France

 Another addition, which is amazing to me in multiple ways. Not only did I see the player who wore that shirt in an actual match already live on the pitch, but I also got it from a very generous and extremely friendly Armenian sports journalist I am in touch with for several years now.
Let's start with my meeting with Hovhannes Hambardzumyan, though. 2014 I did a roadtrip with my fiancé through the Souther Balkans, more precisely Macedonia -> Kosovo -> Montenegro -> Albania -> Macedonia. A trip I can only recommend to anyone, especially Skopje, Prizren, Kotor, the Tara Valley, Tirana and Lake Ohrid! Anyways, our first and last stop was Skopje, the capital of Macedonia (or FYROM if any Greek friends are reading this ;) ). At the end of our trip we met my friend Darko in Skopje, who helped me to get several matchworn Macedonia shirts before, and his wonderful wife. Darko is not only working in the finance sector and playing in the best death metal band of Macedonia, but he is also doing the live ticker for nearly all Macedonian First Division matches and is an ultra of FK Vardar, one of the Skopje clubs. So Darko took us to a match of FK Vardar in the amazing national stadium in Skopje on a sunny Saturday, just a day before our trip ended. One new signing, Hovhannes Hambardzumyan, was by far the most promising player on the field and really got my attention during the 90 mins. This, and his tongue-twisting name, made me remember him.
One and a half year later, in early 2016, I was again writing several mails back and forth with the Armenian sports journalist Gevorg Ghazaryan, who actually got in touch with me initially asking me about informations about the two CONIFA members Nagorno-Karabakh and Western Armenia. Gevorg planned to travel to Abkhazia to see the World Football Cup live and cover it for Armenian outlets. Unfortunately, because of the April attacks on Nagorno-Karabakh, he could not make it, but we stayed in touch for several weeks. After a while I just asked him if there is any way he could help to get a matchworn Armenia shirt. Well, a month or so later I had a parcel straight from Yerevan in my post box with this absolutely amazing shirt.
As I have been to Armenia in 2014 this shirt is so special in many ways to me that I really appreciate Gevorgs help a lot and want to take this opportunity to once again thank him!

Sudan

 

I can finall add a Sudan shirt to my collection, but unfortunately I am not able to give you a picture of it in use. The history behind this shirt is a bit quirky and indeed one of the stories that make collecting such pieces of polyester so amazing!
Let me try to recap that story somehow. A friend of mine, fellow German collector Chris H., got in touch with the Australian Luke through me. Luke is actually the owner of AMS Clothing, the sport apparel brand that recently equipped South Sudan, amongst others, with their official shirts. Earlier this year Luke planned to travel to Juba, South Sudan, to meet the FA (and FIFA president Infantino) in person. Before he went off, Chris H. asked him to arrange him a club shirt from South Sudan and Sudan and, for me, a Sudan national team shirt. Luke again contacted a few players if there is any way to get hold of such shirts and found support by Atak Lual, a South Sudanese international, who played for the U21 of Sudan before the independence of the South. So Atak brought the shirt from Sudan to Juba and handed it over to Luke in person. Luke again took it to Australia and send it to my mate in Berlin, who again sent it to me.
A truly global spanning mission to get me a Sudan shirt ended and made me extremely happy to fill another, extremely hard, gap in my collection.

Unfortunately I was unable to find a picture of this particular shirt in use by the Sudanese U21. However, Sudan used a couple of different shirts of the manufacturer "Hattrick" some years ago. But to be fair, there is no proof needed for me. This insane story is so bizarre and actually true that I do not have a single doubt about it.
I gratefully thank Atak, Luke and Chris H for their support!