Andorra 2012-13 Home Match-prepared v Turkey
Andorra 2014-15 Away
Andorra 2022-23 Home Match-prepared Sergi Moreno v Latvia

Here’s a classic from Adidas’ era in UEFA’s kit assistance scheme. Utterly plain blue template with some minor white panels. Look at the other kit assistance nations and they all got the same too, just erasing their individuality that bit more. We do have some nice, very minor accenting on the cuffs and hem but this shirt is really made by the older FAF logo and the patches more than anything. Dull, in general, but to be expected, sadly.

Used across 2014 World Cup qualifiers, Andorra failed to score a single goal or point, finishing bottom of their group. The narrowest loss was 1-0 at home to Estonia with 2-0 losses coming away to Estonia as well as to the Netherlands, Hungary and Turkey each. But the last team in the group, Romania, beat them 4-0 home and away. They were the only UEFA team to not score in the qualifiers, but were resilient enough to not be the worst goal difference.

Small nation gets standard Nike/Adidas template is a very standard and very boring theme in kits so not much to say here. Wait, this isn’t standard! Andorra paid Adidas some money and actually got an interesting shirt out of it (more than one, their recent shirt history is spectacular). They managed to squeeze in all their flag colours and make a template non-standard and interesting!

Euro 2016 qualification saw Andorra uses this style of shirt and they continued their sad tradition of losing every European Championship qualifier they played in. This trend was recently changed with a fantastic victory over Moldova but a 2-1 home loss to Wales was the closest they came to a point in that campaign. 4 goals scored (all at home) and 36 conceded isn’t a fantastic record but Gibraltar and San Marino both had worse records. All their home games being kept within 3 goals was respectable considering their opposition included Belgium, Wales and Bosnia & Herzogovina.

Errea took over UEFA’s kit assistance scheme and reviews were mixed. But for Andorra? Look for yourself, they did quite the job! Main attention grabber are the coloured mountain outlines on the front, though there are also 2 deep red ones lower down to keep the pattern up. The Andorran crest, rather than the FA logo strangely, is also rubberised which is intriguing. Throw in the blue collar, sleeve cuffs and a bit down the sides and there’s quite a bit to the shirt without being overwhelming. Definitely a good one.

Used so far in the 2022-23 Nations League, Andorra were drawn in a group with Latvia, Moldova and Liechtenstein. They’d manage to do the double over Liechtenstein, but 2 home draws and away losses would put them out of promotion contention. To end on only a -1 goal difference even with their 3-0 loss in Latvia was a promising sign, but it was always going to be a hard ask.

As I’ve hinted, this sort of campaign is fairly typical for Andorra, 6 consecutive Euro qualifying losses ended with a 1-0 win over Moldova which they added to with a 2-2 draw away to Albania. They finished 5^th in their group to avoid last place for the first time. World Cup qualifying hasn’t gone much better with 2 wins and 3 draws across 5 campaigns and all last place finishes. A 1-0 win over the then FYR Macedonia in 2006 qualifying and the spectacular 1-0 win over Hungary in 2018 qualifying remain their highlights on that side. Nonetheless, their captain Ildefons Lima Solà holds the Guinness World Record for the longest international career at over 22 years long! He’s their record cap holder and goal scorer while still a centre back too!

Andorra were late to the party of women’s football, starting off in 2014 where they achieved a win over Gibraltar. Other than that, even with qualifying rounds involved, they’ve lost every game with their only goals coming in a 5-3 loss to Malta. Like the men’s senior team, recent improvement is the key to the men’s youth results, with a handful of draws and victories, more weighted towards the latest results than the historical ones. A stunning 2-0 victory for the U21s against Turkey is the real stand-out and that came this year! Otherwise, finishing bottom or occasionally second bottom isn’t just reserved for the seniors. Women’s youth football is, like the senior side, very recent and hasn’t had much time to develop. This has shown in the few results to date.

Despite their small size and presence on the international scene, Andorra do have both a futsal and a beach soccer team. The Beach Soccer team have won against Norway, but not in competitive play (indeed they haven’t won in competitive play). In terms of futsal they’ve done much better, including a 2^nd place in the preliminary qualifying round for the Euros, beating Israel and the Republic of Ireland. 9 victories from 29 isn’t exactly world beater status but it tops every other Andorran football team!

Recently Andorra have completed their best ever European Championship qualification campaign and finished off the bottom of their group for the first time ever. This was a huge boost heading into 2022 World Cup qualifiers and they have managed narrow defeats to Hungary and Albania. Their best results came against San Marino though. Expected to be close matches, they were comfortable in 2-0 and 3-0 victories and they’ll view this as a successful campaign overall.

Algeria 2010 Home

Around 2010 Puma decided that they had come up with an idea they liked. This template spread across most of Africa with even Equatorial Guinea and Sudan getting involved. It allowed for a unique twist for each nation (in this case the glorious Fennec Fox on the sleeve) but the asymmetry of material and the weird mesh that made up most of the gap is slightly annoying. Not too much to mention, the sleeve cuffs have a slight triangular bit to make them stand out but otherwise the shirt is largely a whiteboard.

Algeria wore this at the 2010 World Cup where their only point came in possibly the dullest England game I’ve ever had the misfortune of watching. Their goal was so badly troubled that a crow rested on the crossbar for a large portion of the match completely unbothered… Aside from that 0-0 they also lost to Slovenia and the USA 1-0 each time. Overall, not the most exciting of tournaments from the men in white and green.

The North Africans are one of the titans of the continent, with multiple semi-final places at the AFCON and 2 championships. They’ve been to 4 World Cups and are regularly competitive in qualifying. 2018 proved to be their big success – they escaped their group for the first time and took the eventual champions Germany to extra time! They’ve also taken part in various other tournaments, from the Mediterranean Games to the Pan Arab Games with mixed results. Due to the majority of their players playing outside the country (France is a popular choice), Algeria do not regularly qualify for the home-based player only CHAN. Their sole appearance in 2011 led to them finishing 4^th.

Their women’s side has been regularly active since 2003 with them qualifying for most of the Africa Women Cup of Nations, though their performance has thus far not emulated the men’s teams. 2 wins and a draw in 15 games has not helped them progress. Their women’s youth teams have rarely played and results have been even poorer. Their men’s youth sides perform better, being highly competitive in North Africa (4 runners-up in the UNAF U-20 tournament) and once won (and achieved 3 3rds) in the early days of the U-20 AFCON but have only qualified once since 1991. Their other youth teams follow a similar pattern, though the U17s reached the 2009 U-17 World Cup having lost the final of the CAF Championship. They failed to win a game.

Beach soccer and futsal teams do exist, though tend to do very poorly on the rare occasion they do play. The futsal team was at the 1989 World Cup (they lost all 3 games) but then next played competitively in 1998. Their beach soccer team has played 2 games at the 2011 Beach Soccer Championship (1 win and 1 loss) but otherwise haven’t played.

Currently Algeria haven’t started World Cup qualification but will be looking to improve on the failure to qualify for 2018.

Albania 1996-97 Home match-prepared/worn for Ervin Skela
Albania 1998-99 GK match-prepared/worn?
Albania 2016-17 Away

Puma had some very decent templates across the late 90’s and early 2000’s and they spread them about. Albania were one of the beneficiaries of this, with them receiving this design. There are very faint diagonal stripes across the body of the shirt but the main attractions are the sleeves. A sort of waving pattern in black along the white band is interesting to look at, and generic enough for any team to use it. The strong contrast of the colours works well, with the thin stripes across the collar adding that little extra detail. Perfect match to the badges’ colours, it is very clean.

Used across 1998 World Cup qualifiers, Albania struggled despite their larger group. They finished bottom, with only 4 points and were 3 points behind Northern Ireland and 4 behind Armenia. Despite the vast points difference to the top three of Germany, Ukraine and Portugal, they had several close games. They lost by only a single goal home and away to Germany and Ukraine (4-3, 3-2, 1-0, 1-0) and at home drew 1-1 to Armenia and beat Northern Ireland 1-0. All their other results were 2-0 and 3-0 losses though. This left them with the best goal difference of any last placed team, though that would doubtless have been of little comfort.

The second thing you notice about this shirt are the grippy patches across the chest and the inner arms, a nice addition to the template for the goalkeeper kits. The first thing you notice is the lime green accenting that really stands out against the black. A nice enough shirt, though the FA logo seems a bit tucked away and it is damaged on one sleeve. Felt numbers is a very nice touch and replicas with numbers for an old GK kit would be unusual so possible match prepared or even worn but impossible to verify.

This design was used for Euro 2000 qualifying where, thankfully, the goals didn’t flow in against them. Finishing 5^th from 6 and 6 points off even 4^th wasn’t great with 5 points at home (from draws with Greece, Latvia and a win against Georgia weren’t well added to by away draws to Norway and Latvia. The fact that Slovenia were the only team to beat them home and away was good but they lost a lot of games, all by 1 or two goals, and it quickly told.

So, Macron have exploded into life in UEFA lately with all of the “Kit Assistance Scheme” wherein they design some pretty nice kits for all the lower ranked teams like San Marino and Belarus. Before all that though, we had Albania. A nice sort of fading pattern takes up the front and rear of the shirt and the FA logo changed colours to match the kit. The material isn’t great and feels cheap which is a bit of a letdown. The other detraction is the recent announcement of the Dominican Republic kit being this template, it is definitely better than most templates but disappointing to say the least.

This kit was used during 2018 World Cup qualification, where Albania finished 3^rd, but a long way off the play-off spot. Albania, Israel and FYROM (now North Macedonia) all finished on similar points totals with Spain, Italy and Liechtenstein separated by some distance. A 3-0 loss at home to Israel was the lowest point of the campaign but, strangely, they won 3-0 away against them!

Albania typically finish near the bottom of their qualifying groups but have had some, more recent, success. They joined FIFA in 1932 but have never qualified for a World Cup. Their sole qualification success as a senior side came from the 2016 Euros, where an away victory over Portugal was the highlight in them finishing above Denmark and Serbia! Stout, defensive performances against France and Switzerland led to narrow losses but they managed victory against Romania to finish 3^rd in their group. As the bottom ranked 3rd place team, they did not make it to the knockout stages. A competitive Nations League group against Scotland and Israel finished with them at the bottom, but a format revamp helped ensure that they would not get relegated from League C.

Their women’s football is comparatively recent, with qualification attempts since the 2015 World Cup. They are able to make their way through preliminary rounds but then have not met with success. This ends up as a bit of a theme, with their youth football (mostly men’s teams to date) mostly finishing bottom or second bottom of their qualifying group. Rare success came in the form of the 1984 U21 Euros (qualifying ahead of West Germany!) where they lost both legs of their tie against Italy and the 1994 U16 Euros where they drew with Belarus but otherwise finished bottom of the group.

In other football, Albania have a beach soccer team, but they have rarely played and have never tried to qualify for a World Cup. In futsal they’ve been much better, ranking in the lower middle of UEFA. They typically make their way through the preliminary round (or come close) and subsequently make very little progress.

Eliminated from Euro 2020 qualifying, despite a 4-2 victory over Iceland that helped cost the Icelanders a Euros spot, Albania were not expected to challenge for a 2022 World Cup spot. They managed some great results though and have pushed Poland very close for the play-off spot. Still mathematically possible, but they’ll likely fall just short.

Afghanistan 2015-16 Home/Away

What we have here is a gorgeous offering by Hummel, who started sponsoring the Afghanistan national side in 2011 but cut ties quickly in 2018 after the evidence of horrendous abuse of their women’s football team. The kit was used by both genders, though the women’s team later got their own kit. I’ve always been a fan of the Hummel chevrons and the lower side of the sleeves being differently textured is interesting. The badge is great quality and dual material, making it nice to look at and feels good. However, the lion design front and rear is what makes the shirt and it dominates both sides. One of the best shirts across the AFC for its time and all the more spectacular considering how poor their kit history has been.

The main time the kit was used was during the 2018 World Cup qualifiers were they put in their best performance to date, with 3 victories. Sadly they had 8 games to play and only finished above Cambodia. Their other victory came against Singapore which was enough to qualify them for the group stages of the 2019 Asian Cup qualification. Here they faced Cambodia (again!), Jordan and Vietnam. Despite getting 5 points at home, they only managed a draw in Vietnam on their travels and failed to surpass the Vietnamese.

Overall, Afghanistan don’t have much to their name in the world of football. They joined FIFA very early on, in 1948, and were one of the AFC’s founding members in 1954. However, they played in very few tournaments, though they have had what might kindly be termed “political issues.” They lost all 4 games they played in the 1951 and 1954 Asian Games and didn’t show up again until 2002 and were thrashed 6-0 by Luxembourg in the 1948 Olympic Football preliminary round. They returned to football typically from 2002 and have lost most of their games since. However, a runner’s up finish at the South Asian Games in 2010, two second places in the 2011 and 2015 SAFF Championships and their sole success in the 2015 SAFF Championship show that they aren’t there just to make up the numbers.

In other football, the women’s national team first played in 2010 and enjoyed the most success in friendlies and in the 2012 SAFF Championship, where they reached the semi-finals. Since then, besides a successful tournament against club sides in the USA, they’ve lost the vast majority of their games and mostly heavily. For youth football, only the men have participated. The U19s had some success in the 1970’s but recently the U16s have been successful, with a debut at the 2018 AFC U16 championship where they lost every game.

In other kinds of football, their beach soccer team has played in AFC and Asian Games competitions and generally is middle of the pack. In futsal they’ve narrowly missed out on qualifying for the AFC Futsal Championship but do have a 4^th place at the Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games.

Currently, Afghanistan have 3 points from 2 games in World Cup qualifying, though a 6-0 away loss to Qatar shows that they might struggle. India and Bangladesh should prove competitive games as they have in the past but Oman and Qatar are likely to be a step too far.