Commemorative Jersey 2004
Matchworn by Gabi Riera 05.06.2004 ESP 🇪🇸 : AND 🇦🇩 4-0
Manufacturer: Bemiser (Fake Puma)
Source: Collector
What better way to celebrate your tenth birthday than playing a football game with your best friends?
Being a co-principality with both the French president and the bishop of Urgell (in Catalonia) as their head(s) of state, Andorra has two best friends: France in the North and Spain in the South. Hence, two commemorative games were planned: a game against France was played on the 28th of May 2004 and the one against Spain was scheduled for the 5th of June that year.
Two games also meant that two special shirts were designed: while the yellow shirt, made by Bemiser, intended for the match against France turned out to be a disaster (as I’ve outlined in this “fairy tale”), Puma was chosen to produce a jersey for the second celebratory game.
Or were they?
THE SHIRT
It looks like a Puma shirt, alright! Doesn’t it?
Ever since seeing the jersey for the first time I was convinced that Andorra wore a Puma shirt for their match against Spain. I mean, there’s the Puma puma on the shirt and after the Bemiser debacle, it made sense to change the manufacturer again.
Yet, after holding the shirt in my hands, something felt odd… The design, the fabric, the cut, the embroidery, the sticky Puma logo were nothing that I’d associate with the German brand.
A quick look at the inner tag revealed the truth: the shirt was actually produced by Spanish manufacturer Bemiser – the very company that f***ed up the other commemorative jersey.
For reasons unknown, someone decided to disguise the shirt as Puma kit!
Despite already being a special and rare one-off jersey – the fact that someone actually made the decision to “fake” a Puma shirt and have the national team wear it, makes it even more special!
In spite of the bad words I’ve written about Bemiser, the shirt is rather nice:
the match details as well as the federation logos are embroidered into the fabric and there is also a little tag with the FA logo on the side of the shirt. Interestingly, the jersey comes with the old federation badge on the chest and the (then) newly introduced badge on the sleeves, making it the first Andorra design to feature that badge.
The shirt was worn by striker Gabi Riera who was sent into the match in the 79th minute, but was unable to have an impact. Eventually, just as the first anniversary game against France, Andorra lost 0-4. It was also the last time, Andorra ever wore a shirt by Bemiser. Or "Puma"…
