#43 Zimbabwe (Home, 2006/2008)

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Usually, shirts from african teams are great. Good designs, plenty of colours, some crazy and out of the box ideas. Clearly not the case with this Zimbabwe shirt, which seems it travelled all the way from the 90's (the bad part of the decade, I mean) to 2006.

The design is pretty terrible, the material is a disgrace, and overall it looks like a really really cheap shirt. But hey, at least it fits nice in any collection! Zimbabwe also sounds cool, and their flag looks neat, so I think things don't get that terrible.


A lot of people will recognize this shirt, it was a regular appearence on eBay and other shirt sites (they had it for a reasonable price at Classic Football Shirts). It was a smart and much appreciated birthday present from my football mates, I threw (as usual) a good barbeque with beer and other alcoholic drinks at my place, and they gave me this Zimbabwe shirt. Thanks, guys.



As you can see, it's pretty much a yellow and green template from italian brand Legea. They have some crazy measures too, the sleeves are huge and overall it feels a bit baggy, but of course it's an exotic item.

Time to learn a bit about football in the country.

See the sleeves? Oh, this is Peter Ndlovu.

Not much to say, really. They usually never qualify for the African Cup of Nations, never managed to qualify for a World Cup, and actually were thrown out the Qualification Stages for WC2018. Terrible. They seem to enjoy some success at the COSAFA Cup, a competition for Southern African countries. Current members include decent squads like Angola, South Africa and Zambia, but something tells me those FAs don't send their best players to a minor cup.

Best current players include Costa Nhamoinesu, who plays for Sparta Prague, and Musona, who had spells in Germany and is now playing in Belgium. Ndlovu is probably their best known player of all time, after many years in the Premier League. Oh, and crazy keeper Bruce Grobelaar, a Liverpool legend, who earned around 30 caps for Zimbabwe (previously Rhodesia), where he grew up.

Grobelaar and an unkown player

Ok, now to the best part. Let's have a look at the Zimbabwe Premier League.

Current champions - Chicken Inn FC. It's literally a football team created by a fast-food chain. The KFC of Zimbabwe, let's say.

Contact me if you know how to get their shirt.

Triangle United did well last season. Yeah, Triangle United. The Sugar Sugar Boys. Their crest is actually a triangle.



And of course, let's not forget bloody dictator Robert Mugabe.

Zimbabwe 2026 CONFIRMED!
Finally, a last picture of my shirt being worn:


And some pictures of some of their more recent shirts, which are actually quite good.

Umbro
Their current kit by Joma
I specially like the Umbro one, but I'd have a go at this Joma green one. Looks classic stuff.

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#42 Belarus (Home, 2014/2016)

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For some reason I stopped updating the blog, but hey, some people complained and here we are again. I didn't stop buying new stuff (today I bought a Myanmar shirt, hopefully it'll get from Thailand all the way to Porto), and the last count is around the 150 mark. A nice number, I guess.

So, let's have a look at this awesome Belarus shirt. I got it on a work trip to Minsk (to cover the match between BATE Borisov and FC Porto), and it wasn't too easy to get. As you can see, the Belarus FA is sponsored by Adidas. I came across a few Adidas shops, but found nothing of their national team. I did buy a really cool ushanka, though, that was really useful in recent trips to Switzerland and Russia.

In Saint Petersburg with my Adidas ushanka from Minsk

The guys at the shops told me that maybe there was this small chance they had a few Belarus shirts in a shopping mall just outside the city center, but hey, I was working and didn't have time for that. I was starting thinking all I could get would be a BATE shirt, which was cool anyway, but it'd be a wasted chance to get a nice Belarus one. It's not that they don't pop up sometimes on eBay or other shirt shops, but they're usually quite expensive - it's a rare item.

But luck protected me, and in the new BATE stadium, in Borisov, they had BATE shirts and Belarus ones! For a reasonable price also, I think I paid around 35eur for this one. Not bad at all, because it's quite classy.


It's not a big deal, of course, but it could be worse (like a total white Adidas template). It has this nice red and green details, and the badge is a beauty - straight outta CCCP times.


I absolutely loved my trip to Minsk, it's definitly a great city. A must if you're into Eastern Europe, it's probably the most USSR-like capital still around. Don't forget they have their own dictator - Lukashenko. In 2016, Belarus is probably the last real dictatorship in Europe. I even worked on a report about the opposition movements, and how they always get in trouble. It felt like a massive thing to do, specially having in mind I work for a sports channel. It was great, I'll never forget those days.

Minsk is really cool, they even have a huge Lenin statue in the main square.

That's Lenin and the Parliament. A photo I took in Minsk.

BATE is surely their biggest and most successful side at the moment. I also bought their shirt, even though I was disappointed to get only a XL, which is a bit too large for me. Will post it later.

Belarus is not exactly a superpower when it comes to football, and never qualified for a major tournament. I was expecting they'd have a chance now that the European Championship has 24 teams, but they weren't even close. Maybe in the near future they can do a little better and push for a playoff place.

You probably heard of Hleb, who played for Arsenal and Barcelona (among others), who is probably their best player in recent times. Putsila or Kornilenko also worth a mention.

A few last pictures of the shirt in action:




Man, that badge is so fucking awesome.

PS - as you maybe noticed, I changed the layout of the blog a little bit. Hope you guys like it.

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