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?

Zambia 2

Edward Chilufya (Mpande Youth)
vs. Iran (4:2) | friendly 2017 in South Korea

Briefly after I have taken my older Zambia shirt out to actual Zambia, having an amazing time in Livingstone, my mate Nick from Football Shirt World got in new Zambia shirts and offered them to me. When you have been to a country, you naturally feel affected to it a little bit, and so this was a bit of a soft spot to me and I had to take it.
So here you are, the latest Mafro design for Zambia, a wonderful design, although I do not like how they print the front number over the colourful front pattern for matches. Thanks Nick!

Vietnam 3

Duong Van Hao (Viettel FC)
vs. France (0:4) | U20 World Cup 2017 in South Korea

Vietnam is surely a country on the rise when it comes to football, including their national team. For the first time ever, they could qualify for a Youth World Cup in 2017 and, shortly after, for the Asian Cup 2019. A huge factor to that recent success is a football sponsoring agency based in my home city Cologne. They have partnered with the Vietnam FA to up their game systematically and were able to realize coaching sessions and qualification courses for coaches and referees across the country. They have also helped building two football academies in Vietnam to find the best national talent.
As a part of their involvment, the German globetrotter coach Hans-Jürgen Gede went to Vietnam as a Technical Director and attracted a team of German coaches to support him coaching the various age levels.
I got in touch with Hans-Jürgen Gede around 2017 and exchanged some calls with him, mostly chatting about his time in Vietnam. He is an amazing human being and full of stories from around the world. When they qualified for the U17 World Cup in South Korea, Hans-Jürgen promised me to grab a shirt for me, bring it home and post it to me within Germany. As you can see - he delivered!
Thus, this is shirt is the player version of the U17 World Cup and comes with patches, but was not matchworn, as the name and number are not printed yet. As a little goodie, Hans-Jürgen even got it signed by the whole squad!
Thanks Hans-Jürgen, really appreciate, I love my new Vietnam shirt!

Kenya 2

Shirt presentation

Finally a proper Kenya shirt. I was never fully sure that my old one is legit, as there are so many fakes around of those older ones. This one definitely is, as it came from Football Shirt World, who again got it straight from Mafro, the kit supplier.
Thanks Nick of Football Shirt World for sorting those out - I love the massive star, although I still wonder if it is a Ghana shirt until today.