Padania 3

Matteo Prandelli (Kukesi, Albania)
vs. County of Nice (4:1) | CONIFA EFC 2015 in Hungary

 As most of my readers might know CONIFA, the organization that governs football outside FIFA, is a great part of my life. The highlight of that part of life always comes in summer, when our big tournaments kick off.
After a World Football Cup in 2014 (in Sweden) we had an European Football Cup (in Hungary) this year.
To make my summer even better I travelled not only to Hungary, but did a small detour before: To Romania, Moldova and Transnistria! An absolutely stunning trip and I can only recommend anyone to give Transnistria, and in particular Tiraspol, a try. A great city that feels quite distant, but is so close in reality.

After that detour I attended the whole European Football Cup in Hungary, which was this time played with only 6 teams unfortunately. The County of Nice, current World Champion, made it again to the final (look at their amazing new away shirt on the picture above!), but this time heavily lost to Padania. The final was more or less a battle with a huge brawl and red cards on both sides. But in the end Padania remained cooler than their opposition and just netted most of their chances.
After the tournament the number 27 of Padania, Matteo Prandelli, was elected by all players as the "Best Player of the tournament".
So it is a particular pleasure to me that I got not "some" Padania shirt, but the most valuable of the whole tournament. I want to thank Matteo and Alberto to gift me that great shirt, that was worn in all matches in which Padania wore green.

Mapuche

Mapuche during the 2015 CSANF Cup in Chile

This shirt is so special in so many ways. You just have to love it.
Within CONIFA we always found it hard to get properly linked to South America, but felt that this can be one of the most interesting continents for us with all the different indigenous groups living there.
For that reason I asked Jens, a fellow football shirt collector from Germany, if he would like to get South America director of CONIFA. He agreed and was quite instantly sent over to Chile to meet the CSANF, their staff, and to attend their 2015 Indigenous Cup in Southern Chile.
As far as I know he had a great time over there and did a huge job for CONIFA by bringing the Aymara team to the 2016 World Football Cup.
Besides that he got 3 shirts as a gift from the teams - Aymara, Mapuche and Rapa Nui, and was so nice to give me this amazing shirt.
I have never heard of the company Krop before and the quality is - simple, but given its extremely rareness and the struggle that was needed to get it (in fact flying over to Chile!) I absolutely love it.
And of course the design is incredible as well!

Honduras 2

Walter Martinez (Marathon)
vs. Spain (0:2) | WC 2010 in South Africa

Even though I bought this new Joma Honduras shirt already half a year ago it is still very very current.
"The H" just wore the shirt in the CONCACAF Gold Cup, which will end today with the final of Jamaica vs. Mexico. Unfortunately, like in the 2014 World Cup, Honduras could again not make it out of the group stage.
The shirt itself is quite simple and straight, but the huge "H" of course makes it a very classic and traditional one.

Honduras

Walter Martinez (Marathon)
vs. Spain (0-2) | WC 2010 in South Africa

Honduras only ever qualified for 3 World Cups, but including the two last ones in 2010 and 2014.
Just recently I bought those last 2 World Cup Honduras shirts from the Swiss shop SoccerSport for as little as 9€ each (plus shipping).
This design is by far the better in my opinion, even though it does not feature the huge "H", which usually is embroidered on their chest.
With Honduras another of the "easy" ones can be ticked off in CONCACAF, with only Costa Rica missing.

Bolivia

Luis Gatty Ribeiro (Bolivar)
vs. Columbia (4;0) | WC 2006 qualifiers | 2003 in Bolivia

Honestly, I do not remember where I got this shirt. I think I got it from ebay for as little as 10€, but I am not entirely sure anymore.
The shirt is as simple as most of the Bolivia shirts are unfortunately. However, it does have some very small details, like the yellow and red stripes, that make it adorable.
Unfortunately my shirt does have a patch saying "Eliminatorias 2006" and I am not sure if this is legit in any way. However, at least the shirts seems totally legit to me.
The match picture above shows probably one of the biggest win of Bolivia ever, a 4:0 win against Columbia in the World Cup qualifiers for 2006. Unfortunately in the end Bolivia could not travel to Germany to play the World Cup again.

Belgium

Divok Origi (OSC Lille, France)
vs Russia (1;0), WC 2014 in Brazil

Finally I got this absolute beauty of a Belgium shirt. Until today I only found on ebay either damnly ugly older Belgium shirts or those new ones for prices too high for me.
One day, when I browsed the internet for a North Korea shirt, I found a Swiss shop I never heard of before: SoccerSport
The North Korea shirt was out of stock, but they had quite a few other nice shirts for absolutely unbelievable prices. This included Honduras shirts for as little as 9€ each and the yellow third Belgium shirt for 25€.
I took two different Honduras shirts and the Belgium one and quite soon got an email saying:
"Sorry, but we do not have one of the Honduras shirts you chose and the Belgium shirt you chose in your size anymore. You can either have them in S or XXL or we can offer you to send you the latest Honduras and Belgium shirts in your size - of course without any additional costs".
So after firstly being disappointed about the mistakes in the online shop I was absolutely amazed by their very amazing offer and of course agreed on that. 2 weeks later I had this beauty of a shirt in my mailbox.
So please guys, don't miss to check out SoccerSport, a new and small shop with a great service!

Belarus 4-11

Vitali Kutuzov (Parma FC, Italy)
vs. Andorra (3:1), WC 2010 qualifiers, 2008 in Andorra

 

 

Aleksandr Martynovich (FC Krasnodar, Russia)
vs. France (1:1) - Euro 2012 qualifiers, 2011 in Belarus

Sergei Kornilenko (Sovetov Samara, Russia)
vs. Georgia (0:1), WC 2014 qualifier, 2012 in Georgia

Aleksandr Martynovich (FC Krasnodar, Russia)
vs France (1-3), WC 2014 qualifier, 2012 in France

Yuri Zhevnov (Zenit St Petersburg, Russia)
Unknown match

Syarhey Vyeramko (Sovetov Samara, Russia)
vs Georgia (0-1), WC 2014 qualifiers, 2012 in Georgia

Yuri Zhevnov (Zenit St. Petersburg, Russia)

 

vs Bulgaria (1-2), friendly match 2014, in Bulgaria

Sorry guys, but I was just too lazy to write 7 texts about my 7 new Belarus shirts, most of which are matchworn.
However, surely this is absolutely uber-amazing. I just bought a bunchload of Belarus shirts straight from the FA kitsman. Well, not I did, but my mate Murad from Minsk. Murad, you are truly a superstar for all shirt collectors out there! I mean who else ever sourced more than 50 (!) football shirts straight from any FA ?
I absolutely love every single of those amazing shirts and thus will probably keep of all them, even though they don't get me much further in my mission.
Unfortunately I was pretty bad in searching pics. Should you be able to find better pics, especially one of the right player in the right shirt with the right number on please let me know.

Thanks again Murad for all your work, even though you only "earned" a large coke with all that. I will never forget you that and surely owe you one!

Barbados

Shane Mottley (Notre Dame SC)
Barbados - WC2014 qualifier

Finally I can tick off another box on my list! This Barbados shirt of the latest design was again sourced by the CONCACAF shirt magician Eric from Canada and came to me via Nick.
Barbados is not really known for being a football superpower and except for captain Emmerson Boyce (Wigan) no Barbados player was able to play on a top level abroad. Most of the current squad still plays in the local Barbados Premier Division, most for "Paradise" or the "Defense Force".

The shirt itself is quite nice as it is made up of ultra-bright colours, which makes it look very much like a warn vest.. But in a nice way of course.
Should you be in love with Barbados, but not be able to source their shirt, I would personally recommend to buy a Ukraine shirt, which seems to be their non-Caribbean "twin". You will have all the same features in the end: yellow/blue in colour and a trident on the chest.