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.

Macedonia 9

 

This might be my ninth Macedonia shirt already, but it is clearly a very special one. It was designed for the Euros 2020, played in 2021 due to COVID and the first ever major football tournament Macedonia ever qualified for. It was meant to replace a design, also by Jako, that the team had to wear from 2016 until mid-2021, making it one of the longest in use in recent UEFA history already. The shirt was designed by a Macedonian designer, in collaboration with JAKO, and features the rare Balkan lynx, which is a national symbol of Macedonia. The idea was to raise awareness of the danger the lynx is in through the prominent feature of the animal on the biggest European football stage.

But, it never happened. The fans went absolutely crazy, when the Macedonian FA presented the shirt together with JAKO mid-2021. There were public protests in Skopje and open letters from all kind of fan organisation. The reason was simple: The shirt is burgundy, not red, and thus does not feature the colours of the Macedonian flag. Such things happen and usually the fans will get over their initial frustration. But not in Macedonia. Macedonia did immediately request UEFA to please wear their old shirts in the Euros and publicly apologized for the "mistake" in an open letter themselves. UEFA accepted the request, which meant that this burgundy beauty was never used (and neither have been the away or third shirts). The previous JAKO design, through that, was worn from 2016 to 2023, a whopping seven years, non-stop.

Still, I got hold of this shirt via a contact at somewhere in the JAKO supply chain. He set one of the shirts produced aside and sold it to me for a very modest 30€, including the shipping. While it is a shirt that was never used, it is surely a shirt with a very special history.

Malta 6

 

Unknown Players
vs. Estonia (0:3) | Friendly | 2017 in Malta

Another Givova Malta shirt and this time not even a matchworn one. I frankly cannot recall why I bought it or where I got, but apparently I own it. It is not terrible, as the white and grey lines work quite nicely, but is not spectacular, either, I have to say. It is just an OK shirt overall. 

 As there is not much more I can tell you about the shirt or its history, let me point out that you can see Tom Saintfiet in the background of the picture. The Belgian coach briefly was in charge of Malta in 2017 and 2018, but just didn't really work wonders there, to be honest. He thus moved to Gambia in 2018, making it the 10th national team to coach in just 8 years. He just never really settled anywhere, it seems. But that changed, as he helped Gambia qualify for their first ever major tournaments - the AFCON 2021 and 2023. In 2021, he even made it to the quarter final with the Scorpions, the lowest ranked team in the tournament. Since leaving Gambia in 2024, he already moved again twice: Briefly coaching the Philippines and then moving to African powerhouse Mali a few months later. Will he settle again after his six year spell in Gambia?