Ethiopia

Ethiopia vs. South Sudan (1:0), CECAFA Cup 2012 in Uganda

Ethiopia probably convinced us all in the last 2012 African Cup of Nations. At least they massively impressed me. I was after an Ethiopia shirt some years ago and had been in contact with at least 5 Ethiopian national team players, but none of them could help (or wanted to). Then I suddenly (shortly before the African Cup of Nations) I read a newspaper article about David Beshah. David was drafted to the 30-player-squad for the preparations for the African Cup despite he was playing at TSC Euskirchen in the 5th German division. After some research I found out that David played for Blau-Weiß Kerpen before, which is the team of the city I live in since 20 years.
Afterwards I just searched him on Facebook and found out that we have 5 or 6 common friends, whom I all know from school. So there is an Ethiopian national team player living in the same small village in the middle of nowhere and having common friends with me. Just absolutely stunning!
In fact David was keen to help me and now, as he just transfered to "Ethiopian Coffee" (an Ethiopian pro club), he finally was able to get an official Ethiopia shirt for me.
His father, who helped sorting out the deal with Ethiopian Coffee, took the shirt with him and I just visited him at home (which is about 2 min by car away from me!) to grab it.
As you might read between the lines I am still very fascinated how small the world can be sometimes. Of course the shirt itself is absolutely amazing and one of the most beautiful ones out there.
Massive thanks go to David Beshah and his dad for sorting that out!
I will leave you with the picture of David that was published in our local newsletter when he first was called up for the Ethiopian squad.

Tamil Eelam

 

Tamil Eelam - Tynwald Hill International Football Tournament 2013
On Isle of Man

 This is the first ever design from the Tamil Eelam FA which was used during 2012 and 2013. Thus this design was worn during the VIVA World Cup in Kurdistan and they wore it on the Isle of Man during the Tynwald Hill International Football Tournament.
As I am nowadays on a voluntary basis as the General Secretary of ConIFA (www.conifa.org), an organization caring of non-FIFA football, I have been invited to the Isle of Man to attend the tournament and to attend the foundation meeting of ConIFA. Thus I also met the Tamil Eelam team and all their staff and their team manager Ragesh was so friendly to gift me that wonderful and beautiful shirt.
I really absolutely love the design of the shirt as Red/Yellow is quite an uncommon color combination.
Here you can see the Tamil Eelam team that went to the Tynwald Hill International Football Tournament on the Isle of Man:

Eritrea

Eritrea vs. Zanzibar (0:3) | CECAFA Cup 2005 in Rwanda

This shirt is just absolutely stunning! Eritrea has one of (if not the) most restrictive government in the whole world. Thus there is less coming out of Eritrea, which includes football shirts. Eritrean football players are regularly fleeing after away matches and thus Eritrea lost 2 or 3 whole teams in the last 10 years.
Despite this fact and the fact it is a comparably small country they made it to the 2007 U19 African Cup group stage and had quite amazing results (for example a win over Zambia) in the time between 2006 and 2007. This is mainly a reward of their absolutely amazing former coach Dorian Marin from Romania.
Dorian Marin is nowadays living in Syria and I was somehow able to get into a very nice contact with him. The fortune nearly hunting me he even had ONE shirt left from his time as an Eritrean coach. Not enough he gave that to a Syrian-German friend who then send it to me for free (inside Germany).
As a little gift (if that would not have been enough) Mr Marin also included an Oman shirt to the parcel as he recognized on my blog that I am missing that.

That for: A massive thank you to Dorian Marin! I cannot thank you enough for all your help and the nice contact we have!

One think which seems to be a bit odd is that my shirt does have an Eritrean logo stitched on the shirt, while the match picture I do have (of the same shirt) does not carry a logo. I have no idea how this could happen.

Vietnam

Vietnam team before unknown match

As said before I am looking to finish Asia as my first continent. And to be the first collector (probably) ever finishing all Asian shirts. With this shirt I am doing another step to reach that goal. This remarkable shirt came from ebay.fr and cost me just 10,17€ + 12€ for shipment. That is quite a nice price for a Vietnam shirt in general. In addition this one might even be matchworn or match prepared. At least it has a ASEAN Cup badge (and a Vietnam logo inside the numbering). Just in general the shirt is quite a nice one even though it is not comparable to the nice design they are wearing nowadays.

I quite like teams that play with their nations flag on the chest instead of a FA logo. It symbolises commitment to the nation and not to any organization in a very special way in my eyes. Nevertheless number 7 on the picture above seems to not love his country that much. At least he does not have the flag on the shirt. Quite bizarre they were not able to stitch one on his shirt for an official ASEAN match!