Following on from CIS shirt I added yesterday, we have another disbanded national team who did in fact play as a FIFA member. Obviously now they play as two separate countries and were previously known as Yugoslavia.
The Serbia and Montenegro team only played for three years between 2003 and 2006 before Montegero declared independence from Serbia and hence the separate football teams. As Serbia and Montenegro, they started out pretty poorly after Yugoslavia’s turbulent World Cup 2002 qualifying campaign.
Their Euro 2004 qualifying journey was a disaster. Despite drawing twice with Italy and beating footballing heavyweights Wales (ha!) twice, they drew 2-2 at home against Azerbaijan before losing 2-1 away – ouch. Their qualifying campaign for the 2006 World Cup was much, much better. They topped the group ahead of Spain, conceding only one goal in their ten matches which is extremely impressive.
Once they made it to Germany, they crumbled. A 1-0 defeat to Netherlands was followed by a 6-0 thumping by Argentina – the worst ever defeat at Serbia and Montenegro. They also lost their final group game 3-2 to Ivory Coast. Much like the CIS team, just a week after their terrible World Cup showing, Montenegro applied for separate membership of FIFA and Serbia and Montenegro was dead.
The shirt is made by Lotto and I believe it was the one used at the 2006 World Cup so I doubt there are many remaining in Serbia or Montenegro! It’s a pretty cool template that was also used by Ukraine. It’s also another long sleeve shirt into the collection – I’ve got a thing for long sleeve shirts…
No FIFA? No Problem! 