I just put up a Senegal home shirt with this the away version from the same year. As I mentioned, I’m pretty sure these were used at the 2002 World Cup where Senegal shocked the World to reach the quarter-final stage on their first and only trip to the World Cup finals.
If you want to read more about Senegal’s journey and more about the shirts, please check out my other post, the Senegal home shirt.
Every World Cup tends to feature at least one country that do much better than expected and grab people’s attention. Back at the 2002 World Cup in Japan and South Korea, Senegal were that team as they shocked opponent after opponent to reach the quarter-finals, one of only three African countries in history to do so.
The fact that it was their World Cup debut made their performances even more special. They famously knocked off World Champions France in their opening group game before drawing with Denmark and Uruguay to go through in second place. In the round of 16 they saw off Sweden in extra time before losing to Turkey who would go on to finish third.
Off the back of such a great tournament, Senegal players including Papa Bouba Diop, El Hadji Diouf and Aliou Cisse flocked to England and the Premier League. Cisse joined my team Birmingham and was a good servant for us. He also had a strong connection with the fans with us holding up a giant Senegal flag and having a money collection after he lost 12 family members in the MV Le Joola ferry disaster.
Since 2002, Senegal have failed to qualify for the World Cup so still have a pretty amazing record of reaching the quarters on their only visit. The year was a pretty special one for Les Lions de la Teranga as they lost to Cameroon in the final of the African Nations Cup. They are yet to win the tournament.
I managed to find this shirt for sale cheap on eBay and the auction also included the away shirt from the same year. After doing a bit of research, I believe this was the shirt used in the 2002 World Cup which makes it a bit more special. The shirt is a pretty nice design by Le Coq Sportif who are hardly known for their brilliant attempts.
Another African team added to the blog and it’s always nice to have a bit of history sitting in your wardrobe!
I’ve just added some iconic club shirts so thought it was about time to go back to my bread and butter with a great international shirt. Luckily it was just delivered by the postman so I can bring it to you here now!
Ivory Coast, or Cote D’Ivoire for any French readers, are the highest ranked African team at 23 in the World rankings and were very unlucky not to make it through to the knockout stages of the World Cup. They were beaten by Greece courtesy of a 93rd minute penalty to send them crashing out.
Their ‘poor performance’ even led to Ivorian Football Federation president  Augustine Sidy apologising to the country. They say they have learnt their lessons but there are rumours Giovanni Trapattoni will take over as their new manager so maybe they haven’t.
On paper they have a very good team with the likes of Cheick Tiote, Yaya Toure, Wilfried Bony and Didier Drogba but as we often see with African nations, they underperformed again on the big stage. Their sole tournament win was the African Cup of Nations back in 1992, hence the star above the crest.
The shirt itself is one of a number of excellent efforts by Puma. They really do great work with the African teams and make sure they stand out from the crowd with unique features. There is a print on the shoulders, on the cuffs and down the side of the shirt which looks great. They’ve got the shirt, now The Elephants just need to do the business on the field.
Bosnia and Herzegovina’s long wait to finally reach a major tournament as an independent nation came to an end after they qualified for Brazil 2014.
Unfortunately for the Bosnians, they flattered to deceive. After losing to Nigeria and Argentina both by the odd goal, they were out. A final game win over Iran did little to raise the spirits for what is, on paper, a pretty strong team.
With names such as Asmir Begovic, Miralem Pjanic and Edin Dzeko, they are hardly short of quality but perhaps their lack of top level international experience came back to bite them on the behind.
On the plus side Bosnia they have a great chance of qualifying for Euro 2016. With Belgium, Israel, Wales, Cyprus and Andorra in their group, a top two finish shouldn’t be too difficult.
The shirt itself is a pretty plain design from Legea. Bosnia have since moved on to Adidas and when their shirts finally hit the mainstream shops, I may have to pick one up.
The first FIFA national shirt I’ve added to the blog in a while but you can hardly blame me when it’s as brilliant as it is!
The Namibian national team is still in its infancy and that is part of the reason why they haven’t enjoyed much success since their first international after independence from South Africa in 1990. They have of course never qualified for the World Cup and have only qualified for the African Cup of Nations twice – going out at the group stage both times.
I won’t bore you with the details of the 2015 African Cup of Nations qualifying, basically because I don’t understand it! But the ‘Brave Warriors’ have to get past Congo over two legs to progress which may prove difficult as they are ranked 91st in the World by FIFA, 36 places higher than the 127th placed Namibia.
I have a bit of an infatuation with Namibia. I watched them play in a Cricket World Cup (2003 if I remember correctly) and remember seeing one of their players bowl with sheer amazement. He had such a strange action and the commentators then said he was a doctor by profession also played for the Namibian rugby team – it showed! They quickly became a country I followed across all sports. Anyway, enough about cricket…
Puma do great work with most of the African nations and this is no different. They invited artists from the Creative African Network to make designs to be placed on each national shirt meaning the shirts were, basically, created by local people. Puma continue to put out some really great designs for African teams and it’s certainly become a hotbed of brilliant national shirts!
A mainly non-FIFA shirt blog, yes, but how can you say no to a shirt like this? I have a thing for Eastern European football and for yellow shirts – I really should have been born in Lithuania. Unfortunately I wasn’t and this is the next best thing.
I managed to pick this up from eBay for a reasonable price and it’s a lovely looking shirt. I’m a big, big fan of Hummel and the sleeve design they have on every shirt is great. It turns a fairly boring shirt like this into a really cool one.
Lithuania have never qualified for a World Cup and have won just three games – against Liechtenstein twice and Latvia – in the past couple of years. They boast (?!) players such as Leeds’ Marius Zaliukas in their team so it’s not a big surprise.
The most British football fans will know about Lithuanian football is that they tried to invade Scotland in the guise of Hearts a few years back (maybe just me?). Regardless of their quality, or lack thereof, this shirt is lovely and deserves a place in the collection.
This blog mainly focuses on non-FIFA football and in all honesty, Hong Kong should probably be a part of that.
They’re a “special administrative region” of China but are allowed to play international football under FIFA. I’m assuming the main reason is because they had played as part of FIFA since 1954, so when the UK handed Hong Kong over to China in 1997, nothing changed.
FIFA now claim that only countries recognised by the United Nations can become full members but obviously there are plenty of current members who aren’t. I guess kicking them all out would probably create quite a stir and it’s no as if FIFA need to alienate any more people!
Not surprisingly, Hong Kong aren’t very good. They are ranked 144th in the World and have never qualified for a World Cup. If China are pretty poor at football, what chance does Hong Kong have?
In the 2015 Asian Cup qualifiers they won just one of their six group games, a 1-0 success over Vietnam, meaning they’ve still not qualified for the tournament since 1968.
The shirt is a few years old by all accounts and is a pretty average looking adidas design. The best thing about it is the Hong Kong crest which is very nice indeed. At least they have something to shout about…
I must admit that this is one of my favourite football shirts of all time. Much like the Croatia shirt, Slovenia seem to go for a very original design which makes their shirts all the more special.
As I said previously, Nike have started to go downhill a bit with national shirts but even their latest Slovenia attempt is brilliant and I may have to make the upgrade at some point.
The Slovenians used to play in all green but after a bit of research, it seems the country’s inhabitants weren’t best pleased as the national colours are actually red, white and blue (which explains the flag…).
Hence the movement away from mainly green and to white, although green still features and the away shirt is a baby blue colour which is the same design.
The design on the front is meant to depict Mt Triglav which is the highest mountain in Slovenia. The team played its first international in 1992, a year after the split with Yugoslavia.
Since then they’ve graced us with Zlatko Zahovic and, ermmm, Bostjan Cesar of West Brom fame? Still a really cool shirt though…
One of, if not the most recognisable shirt in world football – and probably one of the coolest.
I always wanted a Croatia shirt so bit the bullet a few years back and I still wear it to this day. Their home shirts don’t really change much as there’s only so much you can really do with a chequered design!
I had a bit of a facination with Croatia from a young age. I was way more obsessed with Alen Boksic and Davor Suker than a nine or ten year old should be.
Back then I couldn’t get enough of Premier League football, despite my club not playing in it. I’ve since drifted away back to the lower leagues but I still look back with fondness to some players such as Boksic.
Nike’s designs, I find, are normally quite plain but even they couldn’t ruin a Croatia shirt and there’s another good Nike shirt coming up shortly…
I know what you’re thinking: Honduras aren’t non-FIFA!! They’re not but while I wait for my first non-FIFA shirts, I thought I’d upload pictures of a couple of shirts I already own that I particularly like.
I’ve has this Honduras home shirt for quite a while and before their recent football revival. They’re up to 36th in the FIFA rankings although we all know how flawed they are…
Los Catrachos have only qualified for the World Cup twice and have never won a game at the finals but they enter this summer’s competition full of hope. And with a group consisting of France, Ecuador and Switzerland, they have a real chance of getting through.
So yeah, my first shirt on here and a couple more FIFA ones will follow. I really like Joma shirts and while the design is simple, there’s enough detail to make it interesting.
No FIFA? No Problem! 