Home 2001 – Kappa
The Country
Guinea is generally regarded as one of West Africa’s more sensible nations, although this may seem fairly faint praise given that their immediate neighbours include Mali – “Islamic insurgency definitely, possibly under control” – Liberia – “Everything will be fine now we have an ex footballer in charge. Footballers are really smart, right?” – and Sierra Leone – “As if you needed ALL of your limbs anyway.” Despite relative stability, Guinea did briefly have the world shitting its collective pants in 2014 when the Ebola virus cut a murderous swathe through the region, killing more than 3,000 Guineans and over 11,000 people in total. World Health Organisation officials finally declared the country free of the disease in December 2015, albeit in the unconvincingly optimistic manner of a man turning up the car stereo to drown out ominous engine noises. Sure enough, a fresh outbreak struck the following March. But they’re fine now. Honest. It’s safe to visit, with the added bonus that you can probably get an entire train carriage to yourself just by sneezing.
Ok, history lesson time. Prior to independence in 1958, Guinea was known as ‘French Guinea’ in order to distinguish it from ‘Portuguese Guinea’ (present day Guinea-Bissau), ‘Spanish Guinea’ (now Equatorial Guinea) and New Guinea, an island off the north coast of Australia that nobody would ever have confused with Africa had they not invented Americans. Incidentally, the name “Guinea” is thought to derive from the Portuguese term’ Guine’, meaning ‘Land of the Black People’, which sounds a bit politically incorrect until you examine a map of the area, circa 1736 (see below) and realise it could have been worse.
Following the French withdrawal, Guinea’s first proper President was a chap by the name of Ahmed Sekou Toure, who immediately set about reinforcing his African head of state credentials by banning all opposition parties, calling pointless elections in which he was the only candidate and hanging around for 26 years until cardiac doctors had the good sense to botch his surgery in 1984. Today the democratically elected – by African standards at least – Alpha Conde is the man in charge. His main quibble appears to be with his own military, who in 2011 pounded the presidential palace with tank shells in an assassination attempt that couldn’t have been less subtle if they’d outsourced the job to Wile E. Coyote. Still, he’s survived two elections since, even if allegations of irregularities – including letting small children vote – are manifold, charges that his supporters vehemently deny, describing the accusers as “poopy heads, who smell of poo.”
The National Team
Guinea’s ‘Syli Nationale’ (National Elephants) carry a reputation as one of Africa’s most dangerous outsiders. While they’re yet to put in any World Cup appearances, the team regularly perform well in qualification. Not banging on the tournament’s door exactly but definitely having a crafty peek through the letterbox. Unfortunately, their best chance of qualifying to date came to an abrupt end during the 2002 qualifiers via a hefty whack of the self-destruct button. Having made a fast start to their campaign with seven points from three matches, Guinea looked all set to duke it out with group favourites South Africa over their next two fixtures. Those fixtures were never played. In March 2001, FIFA booted Guinea out of the competition for continued government interference in the country’s football affairs, leading to their results being expunged from the record books and effectively allowing the South Africans to cruise to the finals unopposed.
This unfortunate state of affairs also resulted in the Guineans being banned from the 2002 Cup of Nations, a competition in which they otherwise have a very respectable record, having finished as runners up in 1976 whilst also reaching the quarter-finals four times since the turn of the millennium. Their most recent run to the last eight in 2015 came about in faintly ridiculous circumstances, however. Following a 1-1 draw against Mali in their final group match, the two sides were utterly tied for second place with identical points, goal difference and goals scored. Rather than have them play sudden death or organise an impromptu penalty shootout*, the CAF (Confederation of African Football) instead decided to let admin do most of the heavy lifting and organised an unduly secretive drawing of lots, which saw Guinea advance based on their unerring ability to be picked out of a hat first. That’s the sort of thing you just can’t teach.
*There is precedent for settling such outcomes in this manner. At Euro 2008 Turkey and the Czech Republic headed into their final group match completely tied for second place, with UEFA decreeing that in the event of a draw penalties would be taken immediately after the 90 minutes were up. In the event they weren’t needed (Turkey won 3-2), but the forethought to set up some sort of contingency was at least there.
The Shirt
For regular readers of this blog (yes, both of you) you’ll know just how much I enjoy Kappa kits from the late nineties/early 2000s, not least the way they tend to give subtlety the middle finger. This design, whilst certainly one of their more restrained offerings, still exudes that classic Kappa attitude of “more is more”, “hang those who speak of less” and “what if we put an actual kitchen sink on the front?” Curiously, there seems to be absolutely no evidence that Guinea ever wore this shirt. For this I would venture two possible theories. First, the commonly given timescale for its usage is 2000-2001, exactly when their results were, as previously mentioned, being stricken from the record books. Perhaps in an era where every game wasn’t photographed to death, any snaps from matches officially now deemed not to have taken place have long since been discarded.
Secondly, and more bizarrely, I do wonder whether this was originally a Burkina Faso away shirt that ended up repackaged to represent Guinea. As theories go this one’s a bit random, but hear me out. From the photos below you can see it’s an almost exact copy of Kappa’s Burkinabe shirt from 1998, just with the colours reversed. Hardly a smoking gun in itself, but look closely at the front of the collar and you’ll see that both shirts are unmistakably brandishing a Burkina Faso flag. That’s a strange enough coincidence in itself, even without considering the Guinea version’s apparent phantom status.
Either way, this shirt is commonly found amongst other collectors worldwide with no real questions as to to its authenticity, so that’s good enough for me. If any of my fellow polyester freaks DO have evidence that it ever graced Guinean backs then please feel free to fling me over a photo. Ta.
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