Women's Home - 2011/12
Manufacturer: Adidas
Source: Wallapop (Spanish small-ads)
THE TEAM
Huge oil reserves, strict visa policies, hardly any freedom of press, a power-crazed autocrat and his flashy Instagram-obsessed son don't shed the most positive light on Africa's only Spanish-speaking nation. Furthermore, the Equatorial Guinean Football Federation did their best to not improve this image by bending the rules of international football a bit too much:
A couple Brazilian-born players were miraculously naturalized, despite vehement protest by other nations. Their women’s team even utilized male players and have been expelled from the 2019 Women's World Cup in France for fielding 10 ineligible players and using forged documents.
Despite quite a bit of cheating, their success, however, is somewhat negligible: the male team managed to qualify for the Africa Cup twice – both times as host. In 2015 they even managed to reach the semi-finals, which the team lost 3-0 against Ghana. Equatorial Guineas women’s team proved more successful: two-time champion of the African Women’s Championship in 2008 and 2012 (conveniently hosted by themselves…) as well as an appearance in the 2011 Women’s World Cup in Germany.
THE SHIRT
As you can see in the title, this is not the men’s national jersey but the women’s version, used in their prolific period between 2011 and 2012, when they managed to qualify for the 2011 Women’s World Cup and one year later lifting the African Women’s Championship trophy.
I found a picture of this shirt on Google image search, leading me to the Spanish small-ads site “Wallapop”, where a woman sold this shirt for a mere 10€!
It’s difficult to determine, if this is an original Adidas shirt to begin with, but it is certainly the one used by the squad. The choice of colors is quite unusual for Adidas and the design was not part of Adidas’ teamwear during that time. Consequently, it either has to be a custom-tailored design by Adidas or a Chinese knockoff made for the federation – not an unusual practice in Africa (see the Central African Republic). Regardless, it is a great design and certainly a rarity! Even more obscure than its origin, are the two logos on the left side of the shirt. A small one reads “Orgullo nacional” (which means “national pride”), while the “GEPetrol” banner refers to Equatorial Guineas biggest oil company with the same name. Since advertising is prohibited for national teams, it begs the question what this particular jersey was used for!? To the rescue comes fellow collector Sascha, who helped to partly crack this case, by finding this picture of a fan wearing my very design. The conclusion seems to be, that it is most probably a fanshirt sold locally or given to employees of GEPetrol.
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