Mauritania

Home; 2017/18

I have Max to thank for being able to add this great Mauritania shirt to the collection. Max worked with the Mauritanian FA for two years, and was given this home shirt and also the away, both signed by the 2017 squad. While he has the away version framed and hanging on his office wall, he very generously put the home shirt up for sale to raise money for an animal charity in South Africa. I can’t say I know many of the Mauritanian players, but Max was able to confirm to me that it was signed on June 8th, 2017, by the squad picked to play (and beat) Botswana on June 10th in an African Cup of Nations qualifier away in Francistown. I have found a picture of a previous shirt on the MFA’s Facebook page that was also signed by a team, and can actually match some of the signatures.

I probably prefer the look of the away shirt, but this home shirt does have one strange feature that makes it a bit of an oddity. The central embossing down the front of the shirt is a feature that was originally used by the German national team. On the German shirt, the varying lengths of the lines were supposed to represent Germany’s record at individual tournaments through the decades. As far as I can tell, this never became a standard teamwear template (which would make sense, as it was supposed to represent Germany alone). But the design is used here, though I’m not sure if it replicates the German design exactly. Now, it is not uncommon for African teams to wear fake Adidas in particular, but this does appear to be a genuine Adidas product, as it includes smaller details such as the QR inner neck tag. It can also clearly been seen here in one of the many promo pictures used by the Mauritania FA’s impressive PR and social media team. So all in all, it is very odd that Adidas would give Mauritania this embossed feature. If anyone can shed more light on this, please let me know.

It was in this shirt’s lifetime that Mauritania qualified for their first major tournament, the 2019 African Cup of Nations. This kit was worn throughout 2017 and 2018 in the qualifiers. As mentioned previously, this shirt was signed by the squad that started that campaign against Botswana. The rest of that group was made up of Angola and Burkina Faso, with Angola finishing top of the group level on points with Mauritania. By the time the tournament finals came around, AB Sports had replaced Adidas as the kit suppliers to the Lions of Chinguetti as Mauritania are nicknamed.

Coincidently, Mauritania and Angola would again be drawn into the same group in Egypt, and would again finish level on points. Sadly this time the two would not be progressing any further than the group, but having secured two points it can be seen as a moral victory of sorts for Mauritania as a first taste of the big time.