Home 2015/20
Manufacturer: Grand Sport
Source: Collector
THE TEAM
The Asian island nation of Sri Lanka shares the same problem as their brothers from the Indian subcontinent: with a rather large population, they haven’t been able to put together a half decent football team. Currently ranked 205th in the FIFA ranking, Sri Lanka is even among the ten worst national teams in the world! In 2019 they managed to beat Macau and progress to the 2022 World Cup qualifiers where they lost all of their games so far.
To their defense, football is only the third most popular sport in Sri Lanka, behind cricket and rugby.
THE SHIRT
Being a populous country and a popular holiday destination, one might think that it’s easy to get hold of a Sri Lanka jersey. Think again! Sri Lanka shirts are among the most difficult national shirts to obtain and might be the rarest shirts in the AFC.
This particular model is considered a holy grail by many collectors and I’m beyond happy to add it to my collection.
After many fruitless tries to contact their FA and ask for a shirt, I finally managed to get hold of one! I have to thank former collector Paul who was parting with his collection and from whom I got a handful of rare shirts.
It’s made by Thai manufacturer “Grand Sport” and features a fantastic looking lion on the right shoulder. I love the combination of Sri Lanka’s national colors yellow, orange and brown (a color rarely seen on a football shirt).
Now, my next mission is to somehow get the matching away version of this shirt!
