Costa Rica 2

 

Celso Borges (AIK, Sweden)
vs. Netherlands (0:0, 3:4 pen) | World Cup | 2014 in Brazil

As a German, the 2014 was a truly incredible tournament for me, naturally. It was the only time in my lifetime that I have seen us lifting a World Cup trophy, after all. That is hard to beat. But during the tournament, I have to admit that I was not that convinced and fascinated by the German team. They played a quite mediocre group stage and a terrible first knock-out match against Algeria. My favourite, instead, was tiny Costa Rica. The got drawn into a group of death with Italy, England and Uruguay, a team that finished fourth in the previous world cup. They literally had no chance - and took it. They started by beating Uruguay 3:1, continued by stunning Italy with a 1:0 victory and finally got a goalless draw to top their group. Even better, they played thrilling, mostly offensive football that really got my attention first and my love second. 

The match that really had an impact on me, though, was the Round of 16 match vs. Greece that followed. It was an unlucky 1:1 for Costa Rica, which was the better team over 120 minutes, and ended on penalties. They won on penalties, scoring all five and I will never forget how the coach explained their strategy later. He said that after 120 minutes, every player will be exhausted. Given the scope of the match, he will also be nervous and insecure stepping up to the penalty point. In that atmosphere, many players are finding it mentally hard to still trick the keeper by looking the other way or trying to read the movement of the keeper. Thus, he told the players to just switch off their mind and hammer the ball on the goal with all the power they still have in them. They are all football professionals and will be able to hit the goal somehow, even with a powerful shot and after 120 minutes of open play. The shot might be saved or they slip and fail - but that's fine. They will just not be mentally challenged and that is more important. It worked like a charm and Costa Rica scored all penalties. They did fail in the next penalty shootout in the Quarter Final vs. the Netherlands, though, in a truly scandalous display of unsporting behaviour. The Dutch keeper should have seen a yellow card for each single penalty, as he kept mocking and disturbing his opponents. Anyways, that's football, too, I guess.

Now this shirt is from that tournament. I jus thad to get it, given how much I rooted for the Costaricans. It cost me around 30€.

Belize 2

Russell Cassanova (San Antonio FC of Corozal)
vs. Honduras (0:1) | Copa Centroamericana | 2013 in Costa Rica

 

If you are reading my blog in one go (which is clearly unhealthy - stop it!) or follow me for ages (which you should), you will have noted that I have a big soft spot for small manufacturers of national teams. Spadd is one such company. It is actually a quite large company, based in Guatemala, that is a market leader in producing corporate uniforms for McDonalds, Pizza Hut, DHL or Bayer. You name it. On top of that, they also produce custom sportswear, but are largely unknown in this domain. Only once, they actually equipped a national football team - Belize for a brief period in 2013.

Back then, my mate Eric did buy some Belize shirts off them. I passed on the order back then, mostly for being a poor student, but also as I just got a matchworn retto shirt of Belize, another small unknown manufacturer. Yet, it did somehow hurt, as the design is quite nice and unique and I am missing a very unique company, after all. It was years later, roughly a decade, when Eric just sent me this shirt over, as a gift, if I recall correctly. Thanks, Eric, I absolutely freaking love this piece!

Anguilla 2 & 3

 

Unknown Players
vs. Trinidad and Tobago (0:15) | Friendly | 2019 in Trinidad and Tobago

 

Unknown Players
vs. Puerto Rico (2:3) | CONCACAF Nations League | 2019 in Anguilla

Quite often, small teams far down the FIFA world ranking are having terrible shirts. It seems like Adidas, Puma and Nike just dump their leftover templates to the bottom teams of the world ranking and forces them to cheaply add a little logo on it themselves. That is not true for Anguilla, at all. Somehow, the small British colony in the Caribbean always had absolutely incredible shirts. The first one I presented here, made by Fana, already had the three dolphins of the Anguillan flag all over the shirt - and these two from Pr1mo are copying that style, adding plenty of colours to it.

For me, there were two main reasons to spend 100 USD for both shirts combined: First, my first Anguilla shirt was probably worn by the women's national team, but not the men's team. I don't think that's a deficit, but of course I do have the ambition that I have a shirt worn by the first A men's national team nevertheless. These two filled that gap. Secondly, the shirt is made by Pr1mo, a small sportswear company based in Montreal, Canada. Pr1mo never sponsored and equipped any other team, as far as I am aware, which makes them one of those unique and rare manufacturers I love so much. Also, did I mention the design is just outstanding?

Paraguay 2

 

Victor Caceres (Club Libertad)
vs. Italy (1:1) | World Cup | 2010 in South Africa

It is a Paraguay shirt. It is striped in red and white. Really, there is not too much more to say about this. I only got it as it came cheap (15€) and my previous Paraguay shirt really has a terrible material. The only little bonus is that it comes from the 2010 World Cup, my favourite tournament to date.

Colombia 4

 

Radamel Falcao (AS Monaco, France)
vs. Poland (3:0) | World Cup | 2018 in Russia

 

I absolutely love this neon version of a "Blackout shirt". The eye-hurting neon FA logo and details across the shirt make an otherwise quite simple and boring blue shirt absolutely stick out. That said, I just had to grab it when seeing it for sale for 30€ including shipping somewhere on ebay.

Colombia 3

 

Radamel Falcao (AS Monaco, France)
vs. Japan (1:2) | World Cup | 2018 in Russia

I got this Colombia 2018 shirt from ebay, where it was offered for as little as 20€, including shipping costs. It is the model that the team wore in the World Cup in Russia, where they topped their league, despite losing the opener against Japan, but lost the first knock out stage against England on penalties. 

There is not a lot I can say about the shirt or Colombia, really, but I somehow do like this retro design by Adidas.

Chile 2

Matías Fernández (Sporting, Portugal)
vs. Slovakia (2:1) | Friendly | 2009 in Slovakia

Another South American matchworn shirt - and one from an obscure manufacturer, too. It cannot get much better, really! I got this shirt from my mate Jens for as little as 30€, as he bought a bunch of shirts from a Chilean collector, including a number of Chile matchworn shirts from the mid-2000s.

This particular one was worn in a friendly match and thus sadly does not have any patchers or alike. But it is definitely a legit one and does come with all the right numbering, at least. It was probably once worn by former Sporting and Besiktas player Rodrigo Tello, who did wear the number 7 at the time.

What makes this shirt special to me, apart from being matchworn, is the manufacturer: Brooks. The Seattle-based company, owned by Warren Buffett, decided to only focus on runners sportswear in 2001. To date, they are almost exclusively selling running boots and clothes, but no football equipment. There was just a single exception to that rule, which was sponsoring Chilean football from 2007 to the 2010 World Cup. This makes the shirt quite unique and very likely to remain the only Brooks shirt in my collection.

Bolivia 2

 

Alejandro Chumacero (The Strongest)
vs. Nicaragua (3:2) | Friendly | 2017 in Bolivia

Apart from Oceania, South America is arguably one of the harder continents to get matchworn shirts from. Not because they are not being traded, but because they are often super expensive, as the football following and collectors community in South America is just huge. As a result, I do not own plenty of matchworn shirts from the continent and am more than happy whenever I get my hands on one - as it was the case with this one. I bought it from a British collector for about 80€.

The shirt comes from a friendly match and I don't know for sure which one. It was probably worn by Gilbert Alvarez, the #9 at the time. What I do like about the shirt is the small logo in the back number and the oddity of the sleeve being abused to sit tighter. I am not sure why footballers would do that, but it does happen that they use some kind of therapeutic tape to tie the hem of the sleeve together and make it sit tighter. This and a little stain on the lower back are the battle scars this piece carries - and I surely won't remove it.

Fiji 2

 

Unknown Players
vs. Philippines (2:3) | Friendly | 2018 in Philippines

When I started collecting football shirts, it was really hard to get any shirt from 100 of the then 208 FIFA members. That has changed, drastically. Just Classic Football Shirts does probably sell shirts of probably 150 of the now 211 FIFA members - and most the others are relatively easy to find in online shops, too. But then there is Oceania, a continent that barely ever made a big impact on the global football stage. Most of the OFC member shirts are still incredibly hard to come by to this day and there are only a very few matchworn shirts in collections out there. This includes mine, of course.

That said, there is not a lot we are missing when it comes to shirts. Most Oceania shirts have been super bland templates with an FA badge. If they are ever sold, they still usually cost 50 Euro or more, which makes it really hard to argue getting any, unless you are doing the 211. Personally, I was among the few collectors that raided Lotto New Zealand ages ago and just bought all (but New Caledonia and New Zealand) OFC shirts from them. They are all terrible and were still super pricey, but they fill the gaps in the collection, at least.

Now, whenever there is a chance to get another OFC shirt, I try to grab. That was the case with this, again super dull, Fiji shirt by Kappa. It is certainly no beauty, but it came for around 40€, if I recall correctly, and at least adds a second shirt to one of the OFC countries for now. Not great, but fair enough, I guess.

Turkey 2

 

Ilhan Mansiz (Besiktas)
vs. South Korea (3:2) | World Cup | 2002 in South Korea

While I did watch some of the World Cup 1998 in France, the 2002 World Cup in Japan and South Korea was the first I really followed. Seeing Senegal beat France in the opening match already won me over and the tournament only got better from there. Germany, playing mostly terrible football, surprised everyone including themselves by somehow sneaking into the final, where they got rightly beaten by Brazil. But the two biggest surprises met in the Bronze medal match: Turkey and co-host South Korea. This Turkey shirt is from that World Cup. I don't think it is matchworn, but it is a player version that I could score for 80€.

Turkey did not storm into the Bronze medal match without hiccups. Star striker Hakan Sükür was starting every match, but did not score a single goal and was just visible out of form. They barely made it out of the group stages after losing to Brazil, drawing with Costa Rica and beating China. The first small surprise than came in the round of 16, when they kicked out Japan by a narrow 1:0 win. As in the group stages, they defended well, but Hakan Sükür was no threat at all. The same happened in the Quarter Finals, where Turkey met Senegal, the other upset of the tournament, and had to go to overtime following a goalless draw. Ilhan Mansiz was subbed in for Hakan Sükür and scored the Golden Goal to bring Turkey into its first ever semi final. After losing that, again to Brazil, the coach finally let Ilhan Mansiz start in the Bronze medal match, where he scored twice to bring Turkey the Bronze medal home.

That was, by far, Ilhan Mansiz' biggest moment in football. The Germany-born striker moved to Vissel Kobe in Japan just a bit over a year later, but could not impress there. Further moves to the second team of Hertha and MKE Ankaragücü were equally unsuccessful. He never played more than 10 games for any of these clubs. Just as he got a bit better in Ankaragücü, he then got run over by a car in Munich while visiting his family. His career was abruptly ended. It took him months to recover and while he did train at 1860 Munich later, he would never play professional football again.

Instead, aged just 32, he got a call up to the Turkish version of "Dancing on Ice". He said he never saw the sport before, not even on TV, but agreed immediately and went on to win the TV show. Apparently he loved it so much that he then became a professional figure skater. Together with a Slovakian partner, he tried to qualify for the 2014 in Sochi. They failed, getting the last place in the Olympic qualifier tournament they went to, but still did another full season of figure skating. When the results did not come, he ultimately ended this second sports career and became a rather famous Turkish TV actor since. 

While all of that is impressive, Ilhan Mansiz is mostly remembered to be the face of the biggest football success in Turkish history. I remember that dearly, as I was watching and cheering for Turkey during the match. I am thus really pleased with that shirt.

Spain 2

 

Diego Costa (Atletico Madrid)
vs. Iran (1:0) | World Cup | 2018 in Russia

I saw this Spain shirt online for a tenner and realised that I only have a single Spain shirt, despite liking the country and the national team. So I got it. I cannot say I love the shirt - and Spain was not great in 2018 either, so I am not sure if I regret not containing myself or be happy to add a second Spain shirt, yet. Anyways, here it is.

San Marino 2

Unknown Players
vs. Germany (0:6) | Euros Qualifiers | 2007 in Germany

Obviously, every collector loves San Marino. It is the ultimate minnow, often ranked last in the FIFA World Ranking. Having been there myself, I might add that it is a stunningly beautiful little country, too. While in Europe, it used to be incredibly hard to get a shirt of San Marino, too, which added to the charm. That has changed, as it did for many countries around the world, but still San Marino does have a very special appeal to football nerds and collectors and alike. I am definitely no exception!

I already did have a San Marino matchworn shirt. A rather dull Adidas template. But I always wanted to have one of the Virma shirts, a small Italian brand that, as far as I know, has never equipped any other national team. As a collector of small brands, it just seemed perfect for me. In addition, most Virma shirts are absolutely stunning and amongst the most beautiful European football shirts - especially those from the 1990s.

Now this one is... not as exciting. It is sky blue. End of story. But it is from Virma, at least, and it is matchworn. So when I had a chance to get it for 120€ from a fellow collector, I just had to get it. Half of the mission on San Marino is thus done - if you happen to have the actual stunning Virma shirt, though, please do let me know!