My football shorts collection

I'm always getting asked what I'll do when I've completed the 208 national team shirts. To be honest I really don't know. I think my bank balance would like me to stop collecting shirts completely, which is probably what I'll do. It's often suggested that I should attempt to get all 208 shorts next, not something I'm particularly interested in. However, I do appear to have accidently started a fairly good selection already:

Bhutan Away

Montenegro Home

Iraq Away

St Lucia Home

Chinese-Taipei Home

Chinese-Taipei Away

Palestine

Whatever your political opinions, you've got to feel sorry for the Palestinian national team. They've only ever played one cimpetitive match in their own country, and have frequently been banned from traveling to away games and tournaments by the Isreali giverment.

Despite these setbacks Palestine managed to achieve a highest position of 115th in the FIFA world rankings. Links with the ex-pat communities in Chile and USA have helped.

Palestine - Home - 02/03

This shirt was unbelievably hard to get hold of. Football is fairly popular in Palestine, and there are plenty of fake replica shirts out there since pro-Palestine groups like to show their alligences. Recently Subside sports have been advertising an older Diadora shirt at £200. I was very tempted to go for it during their 20% off everything sale.
However, Kris, a follower of this blog got in contact with me when he saw that they had a limited number of this design for just £45. The quality of the shirt is not good, it's made by Training, the Chilean manufactuers who also supply the Palestino team in the Chilean league.

Bhutan

I've always had a soft spot for the Bhutan football team. Ever since their appearance in The Other Final in 2002 I've kept an out of for their progress. For those that don't know the story, on the same day as the 2002 World Cup Final between Brazil and Germany a friendly was played between the two bottom ranked sides in FIFA. At the time Bhutan and Montserrat occupied the bottom two places. Bhutan came out of the match 4-0 winners and recorded their first win since joinging FIFA in 2000. Since then Bhutan have gone on to thrash Guam 6-0 in 2003 and knock Afghanistan out of the 2008 South Asian Championships. It has to be remembered that Bhutan were only at the bottom of the rankings because of  their lack of history.

Unfortunately Bhutan are one of four teams who will not be competing to qualify for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. Due to the size of Asia the distances involved for countries the size of Bhutan it is extrememly hard to justify the cost. In my opinion they need to organise a one off qualifying tournament involving the smaller nations along the same lines as the South pacific games in the OFC region. 

Bhutan - Away -2010

When I started out this project to collect a shirt from every nation I never imgained that I would be able to get hold of a Bhutan shirt. Fortunately I was put in contact with a very helpful former national team player. He went out of his way to help me, and I'm exetremely grateful.

Not only did I get the shorts included, but I also got a collection of postcards showing off the beautiful Bhutanese landscape.

A new Kenya shirt

Kenya - ? - ?

Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea U17  vs Vanuatu in the OFC Championship

Papua New Guinea - Home - 2011

A new Qatar shirt

Chile vs Qatar

Qatar - Away - 2010

Another new Armenia shirt

Armenia - ? - ?

 

A new Armenia shirt

Armenia - ? - ?

 

USSR

USSR - Home - ?

There's so many fo these shirts about, all seem to differ slightly. Some are reproductions, so fakes, some 'retro' shirts. I can't believe they were ever so popular during the early 90s, did people really walk around wearing soviet football shirts?

This onelooks genuine enough to me, but I really can't be sure.

 

Kenya

Kenya - Home - ?

I'm gonna be honest here. I can't figure out if this is genuine or not, and assuming it is a genuine Adidas shirt, is it a genuine Kenya shirt?

All the sign of a real shirt are there, but it just eems a bit odd. I know that Adidas have factories all over the world, and maybe the quality and design differ slightly. Any experts know anything?

Ok, trust me, that does say "Adidas International" up the top there.