Cyprus 1996-99 Home, matchworn by ??? v Slovenia
Cyprus 1996-99 Away
Cyprus 2006-08 Away
A lot of Cypriot shirts have the unfortunate tendency to be a bit boring. Errea decided, upon receiving the contract, to give them their best shirt ever, just to compensate. A massive FA logo printed across the front in a giant, angled cross; the rest of the front and the sleeves inspired by when your old CRT TV had no signal; and even a vague pattern in the fabric, though who knows what that is. It is bold and in your face from the start, with the nicer, round logo. They then rather spoilt the effort by reverting to plain kits after a few years, but what can you do?
The great design saw extended use, across 1996-1999, mainly for the 2 sets of qualifiers. 1998 qualification saw them in a group with Bulgaria, Russia, Israel and Luxembourg. Their home performance was impressive, taking 2-0 wins over Israel and Luxembourg, while also drawing 1-1 with Russia. However, they only had a 3-1 win over Luxembourg to show for their away matches, losing every other match by at least 2 goals. They finished in 4th place, only 3 points behind Israel, but struggled to step up to compete for qualification.
2000 qualifiers were much more interesting, with Spain, Israel, Austria and San Marino providing the opposition. Again, they had only a single away victory for points, an edgy 1-0 win over San Marino, even losing 8-0 to Spain! However, at home they grabbed 3-2 victories over Spain and Israel. Coupled with a 4-0 win over San Marino, they again finished 4th, but this time in a cluster of three teams. Only a point behind Austria and Israel (the play-off team), they suffered on goal difference regardless.
Next up is a more commonly seen shirt. Diadora went for something fairly interesting with the sort of wave pattern across the sleeves and the central badge. The green is an interesting addition and the top of the shirt does work well, but it suffers somewhat lower down. A nice enough shirt from a short lived contract, but a fairly simple one that didn’t lead into anything more.
Cypriot Diadora graced the vast Euro 2008 qualifying groups. Cyprus would again finish second from bottom, in a cluster of teams, but this time much further from qualification. Czechia and Germany were far ahead of everyone else, but the Republic of Ireland in 3rd were only 3 points ahead of 6th placed Cyprus! They managed a 1-1 away draw in Ireland to complement a familiar 1-0 win over San Marino for an additional away point, but a familiar story held true with only 2 home defeats (both by 2 goals, to Czechia and Slovakia). 3 goals victories over the Irish and Sammarinese, a 2 goal win over wales and a spectacular 1-1 draw with Germany helped them to a reasonable 14 points!
In general these performances are fairly typical for Cyprus, a team who regularly occupy the bottom few rungs of the qualifying ladder. While they joined FIFA fairly early, and struggled accordingly, since the 1994 qualifiers they’ve managed at least 1 (and up to 4) wins in all but 1 qualification attempt. Being a point off the play-offs is the closest they’ve come to a major tournament. In 3 seasons of the Nations League they’ve also only managed 3 wins, falling twice into the relegation play-off. More luck has been had in friendly tournaments, with them organising the Cyprus Tournament most years between 1997 and 2011. They only won it twice, but faced a variety of sides throughout.
Their women’s side has only seen very limited action, predominantly in very recent years only. They host the Cyprus Cup, but have only played in the 2nd tier version, the Aphrodite Cup. Here they managed 2nd place in 2015 and 2016, falling short of Greece and Israel respectively. However, despite a disappointing 5th place in 2017 (bringing a record 7-1 win over Bahrain), they managed to come back strongly in 2019 to win it. Their sole competitive qualification attempt was for the 2023 World Cup, grabbing a 1-1 home draw against Belarus, but otherwise scoring only a single further goal while conceding another 47… Still progress to be made. Men’s youth football has regularly followed a similar pattern to the seniors, with the team struggling in the first qualifying stages, though there has been success. The U21s managed 2nd in their 2004 qualifying group, the U19s became semi-regular in the elite round of qualification and hosted the 1998 U18 Championship, and the U17/16s would go to the 1990 and 1992 Championship (the latter as hosts), grabbing a draw and a win. Women’s youth football has been deeper than the senior side, starting in 2008 for both levels. The U19s only have 2 wins and 3 draws (plus 1 forfeit win) in qualifiers, while the U17s only played in the 2008 qualifiers. They’ve struggled to get going in the sport, and only seem to have made limited effort.
Active in futsal qualifiers, Cyprus tend to be stuck in the preliminary qualifiers when those are implemented. They often get a result or two at that level, showing that they can be competitive there, but they are ranked lowly within UEFA and are fairly stable in that position. They reached the main round of U19 futsal qualifiers in 2019 (and started there for 2022), but haven’t threatened qualification, while they’ve never tried women’s futsal. Beach soccer, interestingly, has not been an avenue explored by the Cypriots, who have never competed.
For 2022 they were drawn in a qualifying group with Croatia, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia and Malta. Expected to possibly cause a slip up or two, they had a few narrow results, but only scored points at home, with draws against Malta and Slovakia and a win against Slovenia keeping them ahead of Malta on goal difference alone. Not an ideal campaign from them.
Adam's National Shirt Collection 