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Matchworn Victorien Adebayor 04.06.22 NIG 🇳🇪 : TAN 🇹🇿 1-1

Manufacturer: Tovio

Source: Collector

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THE TEAM

[niʒɛʁ] – just to get the pronunciation out of the way – is a landlocked country in West Africa named after the Niger river. As a landlocked country with 80% of its area inside the Sahara Desert, economic prospects are rather bleak, which also reflects in Niger’s last rank in the 2018 Human Development Index.

Despite their economic shortcomings, the Nigerien national football team has managed to reach a respectable 106th place in the FIFA World ranking above such nations as Thailand, Latvia and New Zealand! In 2012 and 2013 the team even managed to qualify for the Africa Cup, where they did not manage to win any of their games and consequently did not progress to the knock-out stages.

THE SHIRT

After switching between Uhlsport and Tovio shirts basically at random, Niger introduced a range of shirts by American-Nigerien brand Tokaji, which were never actually used in a match...

In 2022, it's back to Burkinan manufacturer Tovio:

Coming in a rather playful design, the shirt is kept in plain white with orange and green triangles. The Tovio logo and the federation badge are all made of plastic and the shirt itself is of decent quality.

The most important aspect of this shirt, however, is the fact that it was worn when Niger faced Tanzania in June 2022. As Niger shirts in general are pretty rare and matchworn specimen basically never appear anywhere, I could not let the chance pass to get this very shirt. With a matchworn Chad shirt arriving to the collection recently, I'm a happy to add another shirt from the same Central African "neighborhood".

Niger before their match against Tanzania on June 4th 2022