Mauritius Away ?

Flag of Mauritius

First international: Mauritius 2-1 Reunion (1947)

Biggest win: Mauritius 15-2 Reunion (1950)

Biggest loss: Senegal 7-0 Mauritius (2010)

Star player: Jimmy Cundasamy (Stade Tamponnaise)

Now I am not sure if this is ever a shirt worn by the players or just a fan shirt but it was cheap so it will do for me. It is hard to find a lot of pictures of the Mauritian team in action and hard to probably identify an official Mauritius shirt. Mauritius relies a lot on tourism as many people go on holiday to the country so you sometimes see Mauritius shirts on eBay but it is hard to define the authenticity of the shirt. It looks nice anyway and will do for a kick around down the local field if it isn't authentic I guess. 

But if anyone knows anything more about the shirt then let me know.

Andorra Matchworn Home 2012

Flag of Andorra

First international: Andorra 1-6 Estonia (1996)

Biggest win: Andorra 2-0 Belarus (2000)

Biggest loss: Czech Republic 8-1 Andorra (2005)

Most capped: Oscar Sonejee (90 caps)

Top scorer: Ildefons Lima (7 goals)

Star player: Ildefons Lima (FC Andorra)

This shirt was matchworn in a recent friendly against Poland. If you have watched Andorra before you may realise that the shade of blue they are wearing in this friendly is a lot darker than the usual shade of blue they use. This kit is usually reserved for the under 21 side but Andorra were waiting for new kits and had ran out of the lighter blue shade kits so they used these instead. The number 16 of Andorra was a player called Cristian Martinez who played centre back in the game which ended 4-0 to Poland. As you can see the badge of Andorra on this shirt is a sort of felt material which is supposedly there to create more comfort when the players are playing instead of the usual you see on a replica with an embroidered badge. 

 Andorra's top scorer Ildefons Lima is actually a defender which makes it slightly weirder when you think he is the top scorer as I doubt there are many defenders out there that are top scorer for their country. In their history they have only ever won one competitive match which was a 1-0 win over Macedonia in a world cup qualifier. England recently played them and beat them 6-0 at Wembley which I did go to and I have to say Andorra were not a very good side but they are only a small country sandwhiched between France and Spain with an estimated population of 85,000 so what can you expect from them really? 

I also have an Andorran national team jacket as well which you can see here

http://bradsfootballshirtcollection.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/andorra-national-team-jacket.html

Curacao Home 2012

Flag of Curacao

First international: Aruba 0-4 Curacao (1924)

Biggest win: Curacao 14-0 Puerto Rico (1948)

Biggest loss: Netherlands 8-1 Curacao (1948)

Star player: Shanon Carmelia (NEC)

If you know your countries you may think how was Curacao's first international back in 1924 when they've only recently formed as a new country? Well FIFA said as they are taking over from Netherlands Antilles they have to take the ranking and records that Netherlands Antilles had before. Under the name Curacao they have only been playing football since 2011. Curacao does not have any stars in the footballing world but  Churandy Martina who represented Netherlands at the Olympics in the 100m sprint comes from Curacao.

You can now purchase the shirt from this online shop

 http://www.footballshirtworld.co.uk/shop/all-shirts/curacao-home-blue-shirt-m.html

Cape Verde Home 2012

Flag of Cape Verde

First international: Guinea-Bissau 3-0 Cape Verde (1979)

Biggest win: Cape Verde 5-0 Equatorial Guinea (2009)

Biggest loss: Senegal 5-1 Cape Verde (1981)

Star player: Ze Luis (Braga)

Cape Verde is a small batch of islands just of the coast of west Africa. It currently is estimated to have a population of 500,000 and it probably won't come as a surprise to you that they've never qualified for a World Cup or African Nations Cup although that could soon change as they currently hold a 2-0 advantage from the first leg of their AFCON final qualifying round. Although Cape Verde are not a dominant force in world football they have produced some pretty impressive players but the majority of them decided to represent Portugal instead. Players like Nani, Rolando, Manuel Fernandes, Eliseu, Varela, Patrick Vieira and Henrik Larsson all could of represented Cape Verde but chose to play for other countries. 

 Their biggest achievement to date is probably drawing 0-0 in a friendly with Portugal despite 110 places in the rankings separating them at the time.

You can purchase the shirt at this online shop

http://www.footballshirtworld.co.uk/shop/all-shirts/cape-verde-home-blue-shirt.html

Heerenveen Home 2011

I mainly focus on buying international shirts at the moment but when I saw this one I just had to buy it. I mean how many shirts do you know that has tulips on? Heerenveen are a Dutch side that play in the Eiredivisie. The shirt has the name of Oussama Assaidi who has now transferred to the premier league to play with Liverpool but he was there last season and this being last season's shirt means it is okay to have his name on the back. You may remember a while ago Alfonso Alves at Middlesborough. Well he transferred from Heerenveen to Middlesborough and famously scored 8 goals in 1 game whilst at Heerenveen. People of Birmingham may recognise Daniel De Ridder and Gianni Zuiverloon that now play for Heerenveen as they both used to play for midlands clubs. 

 They have never won the Dutch title but in 2000 they did come runners up and to this day that is their best achievement but I just really like the shirt. Even the official licensed product label is cool.

Liberia Home ?

Flag of Liberia

First international: Liberia 2-1 Chad (1963)

Biggest win: Liberia 4-0 Gambia (1996)

Biggest loss: Tunisia 7-0 Liberia (2001)

Star player: Sekou Oliseh (CSKA Moscow)

I can't find a picture of this shirt in use so if anyone can then that would be helpful. The shirt has the name of the most famous Liberian ever in George Weah. George Weah had a successful career at European clubs like Monaco, Paris Saint Germain, AC Milan, Chelsea and Manchester City. In 1995 he won the FIFA World player of the year award and now spends his time as a politician. 

 Liberia have been involved in 2 African Nations Cups in 1996 and 2002 and with a current ranking of 111 that probably won't change although yesterday they beat Ghana 2-0 in a friendly which is a big achievement for them and drew the first leg of the final qualifying round for the African Nations Cup 2-2 versus Nigeria so if they can go back to Lagos and get a surprise win then we might see them at the 2013 AFCON. 

 If you read my Mali post you could see I have quite a bit of an obsession with Football Manager and probably my greatest achievement was winning the 2022 World Cup with Liberia on the game. I'm still not sure to this day how it happened as one game Germany had 28 shots to Liberia's 1 and the game finished 1-0 to Liberia. I pretty much done a Chelsea in the Champions League but took it to another level. So in 10 years time let's see if they can repeat my achievement. 

China Away 2008

Flag of China

First international: Philippines 2-1 China (1913)

Biggest win: China 19-0 Guam (2000)

Biggest loss: Brazil 8-0 China (2012)

Most capped: Li Weifeng (112 caps)

Top scorer: Hao Haidong (37 goals)

Star player: Zheng Zhi (Guangzhou Evergrande)

For a country with the largest population in the world you'd thought they'd have a pretty successful football team. With over 1 billion people in the country they only have one world cup appearance in 2002 to boast about in which they lost every game. They have also been the runners up of two Asian cups. In China football is widely followed as almost 300 million people tuned into their world cup games in 2002 and there were around 250 million viewers for the Asian cup final in 2004. The current China team does not have any players in it based outside of China. Not many of their players have really made it in different leagues apart from the likes of Sun Jihai at Manchester City and Zheng Zhi at Charlton. Recently they have been getting some good results with a 1-1 draw vs Ghana and narrowly losing 1-0 to Spain and Sweden.