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#2 Estonia (Home, 2008/2009)
Ah, Estonia, Estonia. A small but beautiful country by the Baltic Sea, with a national team that kept improving in the last 2 or 3 years, becoming an interesting squad and a tricky opponent in qualification matches.
When I got there, I immediately saw some posters announcing an exciting match between Estonia and Brazil. There was some excitement around it, and that worked just fine for me: shirts from local clubs were nowhere in sight, but it was surprisingly easy to get my hands on their national colours. Nike Store close to the bus station (I think), loads of shirts everywhere. And the staff in the shop kept reminding Estonia was playing against Brazil in a few days.They did well indeed: lost 0-1. A great result for a semi-minnow.
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| Estonia 0-1 Brazil. Better than Argentina (sometimes). |
The design is quite simple (oh, how I love dull templates), but I definitly like it. It looks classy for some reason. No clue why though. It's basically a plain blue shirt, with some white on the sleeves and on the neck.
I always liked Estonia and their football team. They're a wicked combination of Russia and Scandinavia: they're a former CCCP republic, but always had a tight relationship with Finland and other Scandinavian countries. And maybe because there's a Tintin character from Estonia: Piotr Skut (Piotr Szut in french, Xyssa in Portuguese, for some obscure reason). He's a pilot, and he has brief appearences in 2 books, before being one of the main characters in one of the latest Tintin books. As far as I know, he never played for the Estonian nationall football team.
So, as I said, I was having some relaxing vacations in Finland, spending most of my days in Saunas and Swimming Pools, and obviously trying to buy some finnish football shirts. My priority was Tampere United. I liked them since I took them to european glory in Championship Manager 2003/2004. I started following their results and stuff, so there was only one logical move in Tampere: visit their stadium and club shop to bring one of these to Porto:
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| More sponsors than league titles. At first sight I'd say this was a mexican club. And... Crocs? Lame. |
The club shop was closed when I got there, so no shirt for me. Predictable. I left 2 days later... on a monday morning. The shop was closed during the weekend, and I spent my saturday waiting for a phone call from this nice guy who worked for TamU, who was supposed to try to reach someone from the board to check if there were any shirts available and if I could buy them on a weekend. I'm still waiting for his call. Sad.
Now they're doing pretty well (coincidence? maybe not). They actually have some chances of qualifying to the Euro2012 play-off: they're currently 3rd in Group C, behind Italy and Serbia, with 13 points from 9 matches. Recently they've beaten Uruguay, Slovenia and Serbia. Too bad Faroe Islands trashed them 2-0 in Torshavn. Well, Portugal once drew against Liechtenstein, so nothing to being ashamed of, Estonians! Good luck Tarmo Kink (Middlesbrough), Kotenko (Baku), Klavan (AZ Alkmaar), Zahovaiko (Debrecen), Anders Oper (unattached) and Vassiljev (Amkar)! Oh, and FM legend Raio Piiroja.
Muito legal a sua coleção! Acompanharei seu blog a partir de agora!
ReplyDeleteValeu Fernando! Fudibol é 5 estrelas. Leio atentamente.
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