Last time I looked at a shirt from non-league English team Dronfield Town, so today I thought I’d get as far away as possible from that with a shirt from an African national team. Not physically as far away as possible, then (I suppose that’d mean a kit from New Zealand) but far away in terms of culture, climate and skill level. A treat for animal lovers, this one – it’s Algeria’s 2010-11 home shirt.
Of all the colours for a football shirt to be, I’d say white is probably my least favourite. I’m not entirely sure why this is. Perhaps it’s because white is the definition of “plain” and I prefer the uglier, gaudier end of the football kit spectrum. Or maybe it’s because of the clubs I associate with white shirts: the arrogance of Real Madrid, the years of disappointment watching England teams wearing white, the fact that, as the saying goes, everyone hate Leeds. There are still plenty of predominantly white shirts that I do like, though, and this is one of them.
The colours of both Algeria’s flag and their football kits are white and green, and while the ratio of those colours in the home shirts has varied over the years these days they’re predominantly white. The pale green trim is doing a lot of work in this design, huh? I think it does just enough to liven things up, and it is an especially pleasant shade so hopefully one day I’ll manage to pick up the all-green away version of this kit. Aside from that, there are two points of interest on this shirt: the obvious one that I’ll get to shortly, and the unusual swoop that runs from collar to armpit and gives the vague impression that the shirt is a wrap of some kind, a footballing toga. Presumably it's there purely in the interests of style, but it does gives the shirt a strangely lopsided appearance.
The badge is emblazoned with a single star, which must represent Algeria’s victory in the 1990 Africa Cup of Nations. I don’t think they’ve won anything else, but if I’m wrong I apologise. Not that sticking stars over your badge really means anything. For example, last season Yeovil Town added three stars to their badge to represent fifteen years as a league club, which is the kind of cheeky nonsense that football does so well.
As promised, here’s the best part of the shirt. It’s got a fox on it! A fennec fox, to be precise, a big-eared canid that may or may not be part of the “true” fox family. Scientists can’t seem to agree. The fennec is the national animal of Algeria, and the national football team are sometimes called “The Fennecs,” which is charmingly understated as football team’s animal nicknames go. It hardly projects the same image as the Elephants of the Ivory Coast or Nigeria’s Super Eagles moniker, does it? It’s great, I love it. It’s an adorable picture, too with just a hint of the slyness that you’d expect from a fox and ears you could use to hang-glide from. Sadly, during the 2010 World Cup Algeria wore a shirt of very similar design where the fennec was more realistic and consequently less endearing. That said, we should still celebrate the fact that a team went to the World Cup wearing shirts emblazoned with one of the real-world animals that looks most like a Pokemon. Algeria went out of the 2010 World Cup at the group stage without scoring a goal. I’m not saying was entirely because the fox on their shirt wasn’t cute enough, but it can’t have helped.
Comments
Post a Comment