Gibraltar

Gibraltar 2010-12 Home
Gibraltar 2014-15 Away
Gibraltar 2014-15 GK, match prepared Jamie Robba v Republic of Ireland

It is sometimes said that Hummel don’t make bad shirts. This is no exception. The traditional Hummel chevrons liven up the sleeves and there is a lot of white accenting, front and back, to liven the shirt up. The asymmetry is perhaps a little odd, but easily made up for with the flag on the rear and the old, classic, Gibraltar FA logo. Nothing massively personalised to Gibraltar from the design, but it suits their colour scheme and looks good.

This shirt design was used across the 2011 Island Games. Drawn in a group with Alderney, Ynys Môn (Anglesey) and the Isle of Wight, Gibraltar won their first two games 6-1 and 6-3 to go into the decider against the Isle of Wight. Falling 3-0 behind, they could only recover to 3-2 against the eventual winners and fell into the 5^th/6^th place play-off. A confident 4-0 victory over Saare County led to a respectable finish, though they likely wondered what might have been.

Next up we have their Admiral designs. It may have been a common template, but it again works well for Gibraltar. A variety of different colour schemes were used across their games with some appearing for as little as a single game. The away shirt feels a bit cut off, with little to the stripe and mostly being grey and white. Pattern is front and rear and logo is spotlighted but does fall a little short. The GK shirt loses the stripe, but the bold contrast of the pattern with the main colour of the shirt really makes it stand out. Also helped by the numbers and patches!

Admiral were the supplier for their Euro 2016 qualification campaign, their UEFA debut. Unfortunately, Gibraltar struggled immensely in a group with Germany, Poland, Republic of Ireland, Scotland and Georgia. They lost all 10 games by at least 3 goals, had to play away from home due to their stadium not being up to UEFA standards and recorded one of the worst goal differentials for a Euros qualification campaign at -54. An equaliser against Scotland in a 6-1 defeat and a late goal in an 8-1 defeat to Poland were their only consolations.

So far these results have been fairly typical for Gibraltar due to their small size and newness to the main competitive scene. They’ve lost every qualifying game to date, though produced much improved performances the more they played and when they could play at home rather than at a neutral venue. In contrast, the Island Games saw several high placed finishes, with multiple 5^th places and medals in 1995 (2^nd) and 2007 (1^st). The Nations League has brought their best success though. Drawn with North Macedonia, Armenia and Liechtenstein they shocked Armenia with a 1-0 win in Yerevan and followed that up with a 2-1 home victory over Liechtenstein, though otherwise struggled. 2019-20’s season brought no defeats and promotion to League C, coming from a win and a draw against each of Liechtenstein and San Marino.

Women’s football in Gibraltar has been developed cautiously, with the senior team only really competing in the Island Games to date. They’ve also struggled in the Island Games tournaments but are looking to improve through their youth teams. Their men’s youth teams have struggled similarly to the senior team, though each have at least one positive result, with the U21s 1-0 win over North Macedonia being the highlight. Both men’s and women’s U16s have attended UEFA development tournaments, though results are difficult to find. A women’s side lost 1-0 to Andorra, 2-0 to an Algarve XI and 3-0 to Luxembourg in 2014.

Active in futsal, they’ve mostly been competitive at the lower end, with a narrow loss to Andorra and a win against San Marino. They’ve suffered a few very heavy losses but have been refreshingly active so improvement is to be expected. Beach soccer so far has not proven to be an outlet for the Gibraltans, as with many of UEFA’s smaller nations.

For Qatar 2022 they’ve been drawn with the Netherlands, Turkey, Norway, Montenegro and Latvia. While qualification is expected to be far out of reach, Latvia are a League D team and so Gibraltar will smell blood in the water!