#36 Malawi (Home, 2010/2012?)

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This interesting Malawi shirt was the latest addition to my collection, and I must thank Aberdeen-based collector Joe for helping me out. He was looking for a Malawi shirt and was able to track a dealer down in the country, and after a first order he was able to get a few more to Europe. He was nice enough to contact me to know if I'd be interested in one, and I sure was, so thanks mate! Great stuff.

It is probably one of my rarest shirts, and it is definitly a original one. You probably know this Puma template already, they've been using it with different african national teams, using a special design for each one. For example, the Cameroon shirt has a lion on the the shoulder, the Algeria one has a fox, the Ivory Coast has an elephant printed in it, and I bet if Nigeria were supplied by Puma they'd have an eagle. So, Malawi has... Flames.


The Malawi national team is nicknamed The Flames, something very original and a bit lame at the same time. The flames seem a bit badly drawn, the shirt would look definitly better with some quality flames in it, and not with this cheaper version. It kind of looks like a bad tatoo, but it's always funny when tatoos go wrong.

Overall, the shirt looks cool and original, so it's ok if the flames aren't exactly perfect. It's still a nice job from Puma, but something tells me their designers didn't spend that much time with the Malawi kit.

Anyway, Malawi isn't really a powerful football nation, but I guess that's probably the least thing they're worried about right now. Malawi is an extremely poor country, with the economy mostly based on agriculture. They have a low life-expectancy, and a really high infant mortality. Things look quite tough for this small african country, let's all hope things do get a bit better over the years.


Malawi's national team never had any impact in the international stage, but I remember them playing in the 2010 African Cup of Nations. It was only their second appearence in the competition, with the other one coming back in 1984. Their major achievements usually come in the CECAFA Cup, a local tournament with teams from East and Central Africa. Malawi lifted the trophy 3 times, but failed to make it to the final since 1989.

As expected, most of their players play in local clubs, and in some small clubs from other african countries, such as Mozambique and South Africa. I must say I don't know much about the team and the players, but I know Russell Mwafulirwa, a strong forward that used to play for IFK Norrköping, my favorite club in Sweden. He wasn't a superstar but he was a decent striker, and I remember him scoring a goal in CAN 2010.



He's one of the few Malawian football players to show their skills in Europe, I am curious to see if some other will follow him in the next few seasons.


Back to the flames, this is what I think about when I see the shirt:


It's like the shirt went to Pimp my Ride or something. But it still looks nice.



I think I mentioned before the good work Puma has been doing with African teams. Some small countries (like Burkina Faso or Gabon, for example) had their shirts sold all over Europe, and also had a lot of attention from collectors and shops in Europe, thanks to Puma marketing efforts. They announced the full range at the same time and provided pictures of every kit, definitly a nice thing. There was a lot of interest in Ghana and Ivory Coast, so I guess the rest of the teams benefited from that.



As you can see, the shirt also has a nice pattern on the back. I'm not sure if that is part of the template or something that also changed in each team, but it definitly adds some style to the kit.

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#35 Finland (Home, 2010/2012)

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I've been looking forward to get a Finland shirt for quite a long time, but never managed to buy one. When in Finland, they were way too expensive, and I was pretty confident I'd find a way to get a cheaper one online. Well, I was wrong, and it took me more than 3 years to finally have the chance to buy a Suomi shirt for a reasonable price, as thousands seem to have popped up on many different online shops! 

I felt really lucky, because not only I finally was able to order a Finland shirt, but also because this one is surely their nicest kit in ages. I honestly believe my louse photo does not show you properly how cool the shirt is, so here's a picture from Football Shirt Culture:


There's also a video of the official presentation, so here it goes too:

   

That's Stuart Baxer talking, but he's no longer in charge of the national team. Mixu Paatelainen replaced him, much for the despair of international journalists, because his name can be a little bit hard to write and spell. Finns seem to have really long names anyway.

I always liked Scandinavian football, but I always followed Sweden and Finland more closely. The local leagues are obviously not brilliant, specially in Finland, but it's great to see how unpredictable they are. In Sweden, since 2000, 9 different teams lifted the Allsvenskan trophy, and Finland had 5 different champions in the same period. Obviously HJK is a major force, and do they seem able to easily dominate the Veikkausliiga in the next few years. They have a really strong squad (for finnish standards), and they do have some promising youngsters coming in. Teemu Pukki, for example, recently joined Schalke 04 after impressive matches for the Helsinki side (actually two of those against Schalke), and is regarded as an eventual Raul replacement by the fans and Huub Stevens.

Tampere United, one of the teams who were making things a bit harder for HJK, were banned from the league last season, because of obscure connections to a Singapore-based company that was involved in a huge match-fixing scandal in the country. It was a shame, I really liked Tampere United.


I've been in Tampere a few years ago, and didn't manage to buy their shirt - you can find more about that story in my Estonia shirt post. 
Anyway, without Tampere on the league, I really stopped following finnish football so closely, but every now and then I still check Nordic Football, a really interesting blog about scandinavian football. I know Tampere Utd's fans started a new club, so I hope they reach the professional divisions as soon as possible.

The Finnish league faced serious hard moments when 9 RoPS players were arrested, accused of accepting bribes to affect match results. Wilson Perumal, a singaporean widely considered on of the most prolific criminal fixer of football matches, was also arrested in Rovaniemi (near Lapland, where Santa Claus "lives"), so Finland actually did something good for football. 

Now, a few things you probably know about Finland's soccer:

Jari Litmanen, a brilliant attacking midfielder/second striker. 


He played for Ajax, Barcelona and Liverpool, and was capped 137 times. Even though he was part of one of the strongest Finland's national teams ever, the country failed to have much impact in the international scene - they never qualified for a major tournament. Something that might change soon, when the Euros will be expanded to 24 teams. But don't expect them to have any chance of getting into the next World Cup, as they will have to play against Spain and France in their qualification group. 

Sami Hyypiä, a strong defender.


Also capped more than a hundred times for Finland (105), Hyypiä was quite successful with Liverpool. After 10 years in England, he moved to Bayer Leverkusen, where he became a caretaker manager a few months ago. It was recently confirmed that he'll be Leverkusen's permanent manager until 2015, so he's doing quite well. Possibly a future Finland coach.



One thing you probably don't know about Finland is that they trashed Portugal a few years ago: 1-4 in Estádio do Bessa. Portugal was getting ready for the 2002 World Cup, but the finnish weren't really afraid and completely humiliated the portuguese squad. It could have been worse. I was actually there (Bessa is Boavista's stadium), and it was a lot of fun to see the portuguese supporters cheering Finland in the final minutes, and booing (and insulting) the portuguese players. Our defenders were an absolute disgrace. Have a look here:


Finland also came to public notice in the US because of Conan O'Brien. He has a lot of fans up there, that kept sending him postcards. He then realized he looked a lot like their president Tarja Halonen (a woman). He spent a week in Finland and did a show about the trip, and it was probably one of the funniest things O'Brien did in his career. It's brilliant. You can find some of the best parts on Youtube. 


They also have a strange passion for Saunas, and things there are incredibly expensive. Helsinki is a very nice city though, and I specially liked Tampere.  

Some final thoughts on the shirt: the assymetric design is quite cool, and the white/blue combination looks specially good. It is obviously an Adidas template, but at least they did something a bit different with it. It is far better from the past boring plain-white-and-blue-stripes-on-the-sleeves Finland shirts.






If anyone does have a Tampere United shirt for sale (or knows how to get one), please get in touch. I'm looking for one for centuries now.

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