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US AVELLINO ZURIGO 2006-10


A couple of posts ago I talked about a shirt from US Avellino, a team I almost accidentally ended up  semi-following after playing as them in a football management sim. I considered myself very lucky to pick up even one decently-priced Avellino shirt, but my most recent pick-up was another Avellino shirt – well, sort of. It’s US Avellino Zurigo’s 2006-10 kit!


There’s a lot of guesswork on my part when it comes to this shirt. Pictures on the club website show players wearing it in pictures marked from 2006 to 2010, but I’m not entirely sure whether it’s a home or away shirt, or perhaps even both. US Avellino do traditionally have green home shirts and a white change strip – but this isn’t the Italian US Avellino 1912. It’s US Avellino Zurigo, founded in 2003 in Switzerland. Zurich, specifically, which is why they’re Avellino Zurigo.
Presumably founded by Italian ex-pats or the descendants thereof who supported the original Avellino, Avellino Zurigo are a non-league team currently playing in the Swiss 4. Liga, which confusingly is the eighth tier of Swiss football. They’ve got junior teams too, and a futsal squad, and I’m honestly amazed that I own one of their shirts. You can keep your Real Madrid Champions League kits and match-worn Manchester United shirts, I’d much rather have a shirt from a non-league Swiss team with a tangential relationship to an obscure Italian team I sort-of follow.


It’s a nice little shirt from Macron, too. White’s rarely my preferred colour for a football shirt, but this includes just enough green keep it lively – although I’d definitely prefer it if the sleeve cuffs were green too. That’s just nitpicking, though. It’s quite similar to the Algeria shirt I covered previously, and it would have been lovely if Avellino’s wolf badge was writ large on the shoulder like the Algeria shirt’s fennec fox, but alas. I suppose you have to be wary about slapping pictures of wolves on your football shirt, lest you end up looking like a team that plays out of a tacky seaside souvenir shop.


Big props to Dr. Giuseppe Miele for stumping up the cash to sponsor Avellino Zurigo’s shirts. It’s not often you see the sponsor's address right there on the shirt, so naturally I checked it out with the ol’ online maps. It seems that Dr. Miele is an optician based in a nice area along the shores of Lake Zurich, and he must be doing okay for himself if he’s sponsoring football teams. In checking this out, I naturally spent quite a while travelling through the streets of Zurich using StreetView. I’m sure it’s not just me that does this, right? It’s a damn sight cheaper than a holiday, especially if you can’t help spending money on ultra-obscure Swiss football shirts. It’s a curse, it really is.
Before I go, and on the subject of emigration: if you’re wondering where you might have heard of Avellino before, it’s where Tony Soprano’s family emigrated from in The Sopranos. Are there any football teams in New Jersey that I might be able to pick up a kit from, get a theme going? Do let me know.
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