#31 Saint-Étienne (Home, 2009/2010)

23:05 as saint etienne , ligue 1 shirt , michel platini , platini shirt , saint etienne shirt , st etienne shirt , support your local football team 4 Comments

My computer is back to work, finally.

Looking back at the moment when I bought this shirt, there's no way I can feel a little bit sad about it. Or at least, it's impossible not to regret going with this one when, in the very same shop, there were some Burundi, China, and Iceland shirts. And maybe a few more that I can't remember now.

I went with the St. Éttiene one mostly because it was a bit cheaper. I guess it didn't cost more than 35€ or something, which was a good price indeed. I found it Paris, in NSH Football, a great shop in Place Republique. I was on a budget, and buying a Iceland shirt (for 70€) would be like 1/4 of my total expenses.

I always had a soft spot for St. Étienne, even though I'm not really a fan of Platini since he became UEFA's big boss. After a golden period in the past, specially in late 70's, St. Éttiene became some kind of yo-yo club, going down and up many times after 1980. And sometimes with some financial scandals to spice things up.


Their green shirts are somehow iconic in french football. And I actually can't remember of much clubs who use plain green shirts as their home kit. No surprise their nicknamed Les Verts, or The Greens in english. Os Verdes in portuguese.

In this 2009/2010 version, Adidas decided to add some golden to the shirt, something that didn't make much sense as there's no golden in their badge. Recently, Adidas came up with a different approach.


Definitly a better effort from the german lads. The sponsor doesn't ruin the shirt, and in mine it kind of does. It's way too big, and what's with the diagonal design? Wicked.


Apart from the golden, there's some level of detail that always looks nice.



I didn't know where this last logo came from, so I had a look on Wikipedia, and discovered it is the coat of arms of the city of Saint-Étienne. Brilliant stuff, it's always amazing when the clubs are attached to its roots. That's pretty common in France, where, apart maybe from Marseille and Lyon in the last few years, there's not a big national force, every region has its football club mostly with local fans.

Always always support your local football team. And if your local team is way too big and you can't afford to go to their matches, maybe you should start following smaller clubs in your area.


Anyway, back to Saint-Étienne. A few nice things I discovered about the club and the city:

- For some reason Saint-Étienne has some relations with Oeiras, a small city near Lisbon. Never been there, I think, and I'm not really sure if I ever will want to go there.
- St. Étienne has more league titles than any other french club: they lifted the trophy 10 times.
- Brittish band Saint-Étienne apparently named themselves after the club. They're ok. So here's one of their songs:


- They're not rich enough to have Neymar on their books, so they decided to go with Gabon international Pierre Aubameyang.


And now some more photos of the shirt and of Platini playing for St. Étienne.

Classy stuff. A bit gay though.

Classic Football Shirts, as usual, actually has some old St. Étienne shirts for sale. Worth a look if you're into vintage stuff.