Eritrea

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The country

“Where the fucking fuck is that?” you may very well be wondering, and chances are you wouldn’t be alone. Straddling Africa’s Red Sea coast, the diminutive state of Eritrea is one of the world’s most obscure nations, and the kind of answer that’s virtually guaranteed to fetch a nice low score on popular TV quiz show Pointless, quite possibly even in a round entitled “Countries called Eritrea.” Not that getting intimately acquainted with the place  would be a particularly clever idea. Eritrea is often labelled as the “North Korea of Africa” due to the ruling regime’s isolationist political stance and their practice of roping each and every citizen into prolonged (and often indefinite) stints of national service from the age of 18 onward, with those of an uncooperative nature allegedly subject to imprisonment without trial, torture and even execution. Just to finish painting what is already a pretty horrific picture, the country also ranks dead last in the global Press Freedom Index, meaning that local media typically amounts to little more than nationalistic posturing (front page), propaganda (back page) and obituaries (rest of the paper).

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the most popular pursuit in Eritrea is working out just how to get out of the place. Since independence in 1993, over 12% of the population has fled for the implausibly more hospitable climes of Sudan, Yemen and Ethiopia, while others increasingly make a beeline straight for Europe, usually via a perilous crossing of the Mediterranean on a vessel boasting about as much integrity as the shady Libyan people smugglers who sold it to them.

For those content with life in Eritrea – or more accurately, those ordered by the government to appear content with life in Eritrea – at least they can point to the weather always being nice and sunny. However this might be a moot point for those residing in or around the Danakil Depression, one of the hottest places on Earth where daytime temperatures regularly surpass 50 degrees, hot enough to fry an egg on the pavement, cook any dog left inside a car within five minutes (three minutes if you prefer it medium-rare) and cause any ginger-haired person in the vicinity to spontaneously combust.

Eritrea’s St Patrick’s Day celebrations descend into tragedy.

Needless to say, Eritrea’s tourism infrastructure is a little on the nonexistent side. This is a shame considering that the capital Asmara boasts striking Baroque architecture and fine Italian cuisine thanks to the country’s colonial past, an era that saw the Eritreans lumped in with Somalia, Libya and Ethiopia as part of stroppy man-child Benito Mussolini’s ‘Italian Empire’, which all the grown up European powers agreed was ‘very nice for a first try.’ Italy’s presence in the area wasn’t to last – not least because their occupation forces boasted about as much endurance as a soggy Pringle in a blender  – although the Italian language can still be heard today, particularly amongst the older generation who can mostly be found moaning away about how government oppression was “much more brutal in my day” and that “genocide used to mean genocide.”

Given the veritable smorgasbord of problems the country has to suffer through, football is understandably not exactly upmost in the minds of Eritreans, including, as it turns out, the minds of the footballers themselves. Since joining the ranks of FIFA in 1998, the national team has seen six separate incidences of players absconding and claiming asylum when travelling abroad for competitions, most recently following a 2018 World Cup qualifier in Botswana, when ten of the squad refused to board the plane home, complaining that they faced persecution upon their return, a lifetime of hard labour, and also that the selection of in-flight movies all featured Adam Sandler.

Attempting to build a team when half your players can’t even be trusted with bed sheets in their team hotel, lest they be utilised for a spot of rudimentary abseiling, simply isn’t going to happen. This is a shame as the “Red Sea Camels” have occasionally displayed fits of tenacity against vastly superior opposition, notably during a goalless draw against mighty Nigeria in the first leg of a 2002 World Cup qualifier (they lost the return 4-0) and in a shock pair of victories over Kenya during the 2008 Africa Cup of Nations preliminaries. Sadly, the team haven’t even bothered entering the last six AFCON tournaments, and while the recent recruitment of Swedish-born AIK Solna striker Henok Goitom, (the son of refugees, because of course he is) represents a small step in the right direction, it remains to be seen how many other ex-pat Eritreans can be coaxed into the fold, given just how keen they’ve been to get and stay the hell away from Eritrea.

The shirt

Due to the unreasonably obscure and dangerous status of the country, I had long harboured expectations that Eritrea would be one of the very last – quite possibly THE very last – country that I would tick off the FIFA list. That this turned out not to be the case really was a stroke of good fortune.  In 2015 Australian manufacturers AMS Clothing, a company already synonymous with supplying troublesome African nations, sent the Eritrean F.A. a batch of prototype shirts (i.e. this design) for their consideration in the hopes of striking a deal to kit out the few remaining players who hadn’t pegged it to somewhere a bit less murderous. So enthused were the Eritreans with their potential new strip that the team actually wore them during the previously mentioned World Cup qualifiers against Botswana in 2015, this despite no official agreement being in place with AMS by that point, something which is obvious from the lack of a corresponding goalkeeper top (see team photo at the head of this post), with the poor chap instead clad in some dull, generic Adidas attire straight out of a Sports Direct clearance bin.

Anyway, it would appear that Eritrea haven’t played any international fixtures in the three years since these ties, however this hasn’t stopped AMS from selling three different versions of the shirt on their website, marketed as home (this one), away (blue) and third (gold).

 

As aesthetically pleasing as these variations are, the chances of them making an appearance on the pitch appear slim. Indeed, AMS have form with regards to this sort of thing. Their Djibouti shirts, for example, have only ever been used as training kit, and whether they even have (or had) a contract with Eritrea is still unclear. All I know is that the white shirt DID see action, and in a World Cup game no less, so for myself that’s a definite  tick in the box.