Bahrain 4

 

Abdulla Yussuf Helal (East Riffa)
vs. Qatar (2:1) | Asian Cup | 2015 in Australia

I got a fourth Bahrain shirt and it is nothing, but the opposite colour of my last shirt - the white away version of the 2015 Romai shirt. I would love to have a good excuse to probably spending 40€ on this shirt, but I really don't. It is years ago that I got it and I have no idea why I did, given I already had the nice home version. Anyways - here you go!

Australia 2

 

Jackson Irvine (Burton Albion, ENG)
vs. Chile (1:1) | Confed Cup | 2017 in Russia

It is never easy to write much about Australia shirts, as they are mostly quite dull. This one is no difference, despite being arguably the most exciting design the Aussies had in the last two decades. It was the away shirt during the Confed Cup 2017 in Russia, in which Australia participated as a representative of AFC, not OFC, for the first time ever. Like the OFC representative Aoteora New Zealand, they dropped out in the group stages of the tournament, unable to win a single match. To be fair, though, draws against Cameroon and later finalist Chile and a narrow defeat to later Confed Cup winner Germany are very fair results.

Again, I find the shirt to be a bit dull. What makes this one a bit more likeable is that it is a match prepared one, apparently from the Under-21. My friend Jens got it somehow from someone working for football charities in Australia and was happy to give me that one for something like 30€, including shorts. As it does not even have its number print, yet, I do count it as a replica myself, but the rubber details and silly fabric does give a good hint that it probably is from a kitroom.

Afghanistan 3

 

Unknown Player
vs. Malaysia (1:1) | Friendly | 2016 in Malaysia

I am back. After five years of silence on here, I have decided to upload a bunch of shirts again to this blog. While I have experimented with a new blog in the meantime - Shirtlock Holmes - it never really worked for me. It's style and form, but also it demands to picture quality, just exceeded the time I can actually spend on blogging, unfortunately. It will remain online for the time being, but I will hopefully use blogger a bit more frequently again to dump the hundreds of pics I bought in the meantime that have never seen the light of the day...

To kick things off, here is the most current Afghanistan shirt. I really did not need to have it, as I already had a matchworn and squad signed shirt, which I do love a lot. But this one, finally, came with a bit of a design. I simply could not resist picking it up. I mean: IT HAS A LION on it! How cool is that!?

Obviously, a lot has happened in Afghanistan between 2016 and the time of writing this, especially impacting women's football in the country. Briefly after the Taliban takeover in 2021, FIFA still helped organising a friendly of the women's national team in one of the World Cup stadiums of Qatar, a signal of hope and support for women in Afghanistan, as Qatar and FIFA put it back then. Shortly after, FIFA of course left it to the now Taliban-led Football Association of Afghanistan to govern women's football again. To the surprise of absolutely no one that meant that the Afghanistan women's national team, now based in exile in Australia, has become "unofficial" and only ever played one more match: Against a selection for the Southern British region of Surrey. A match organised by a friend of mine - Danny - who runs the Surrey International Football Association and, importantly, very much without any support whatsover from FIFA. One could say that FIFA only ever once cared about women in Afghanistan: When they could be used for a publicity stunt of the shameful Qatar World Cup.

Yugoslavia

With this Yugoslavia shirt, the Balkan should be covered, given that shorter lived countries as the Republic of Serbia Krajina never had time to found a national football team.
It also is a good leap forward in terms of completing ex-FIFA shirts. Just the two Germanys, which are super expensive, South Vietnam and South Yemen to go now, I believe. I never focused on getting those shirts, and probably they are nearly all impossible to ever get, but if you have a South Yemen shirt lying around at home, please let me know. Thanks!

Malta 3

Unknown Players
vs. Portugal (0:4) | World Cup 1994 qualifier | 1993 in Italy

Malta shirts, for reasons I never quite understood, are largely available out there, usually super beautiful and, even when matchworn, don't break your bank. This one ticks all those boxes for sure. It is matchworn, it is from the early 90s and has a wonderful design we would now call "vintage" and it came for around 50€. Although I had a matchworn Malta shirt, I could thus naturally not resist and I am very happy I did not!

Panjab

Unknown Player
vs. Sealand (4:1) | friendly 2014 in England

Panjab is a region spanning across India and Pakistan and once was a powerful kingdom that influenced at least half of Asia. The name of the region is today usually written as "Punjab", which is the spelling the British colonizers preferred, as an English pronunciation of "Punjab" sounds more like what Panjab should be pronounced like. Originally, however, Panjab is derived from the two Persian words "panj" (=five) and "ab" (waters), describing the region as the land of the five streams. Understandably, the FA does prefer the traditional spelling and sticks to Panjab until today.
That FA was actually found in England as a vehicle to bring the massive Panjabi community in the UK, Canada, all across Europe and the homelands in India and Pakistan together - on a footbal pitch. They grew significantly and do now regularly pick Pakistan national like goalkeeper Yussef Butt, who are very proudly representing their Panjabi heritage.

Before they grew, though, the FA president Harpreet Singh presented me this matchworn shirt as a gift, which I appreciate a lot. Although a very simple, and for me too simple, designed shirt, it is great to have a piece of history from the early days of the team. Given their much more sophisticated and beautiful current kits, I will, however, definitely try to get hold of one of those in the future. Thanks, Harpreet!

Uganda 3

One more shirt that I own for ages, but never uploaded to this blog, as I was not too sure that it is legit. As I now went through all shirt with great care and checked their legitimacy as good as possible, I tend to believe that this one is legit, although I still struggle to find a match picture of it in use. Can you help?