Sometimes, finding these shirts leads to confusion. Most of the time it’s of the “who thought that was a good idea?” variety. But sometimes the confusion is different. Sometimes the confusion is more along the lines of “what time zone does the South Pole use?” (go ahead, look it up, I hope you are as surprised as I am that they follow Daylight Savings Time down there). This is one of those times.
The central question for me here is: why does this United Arab Emirates shirt use Western-style writing? The badge itself uses both Arabic (the official language of the country) and Western, so why does the patterned part of the shirt only use the Western? Oh, and for good measure, who thought this was a good idea?
AUE UEA EAU AEU EUA UAE
AUEUAUEUAEAEUAUEAUEUAUEUAEUAEU
AUEUAEUAUEUAEUEUAUAEUEUAUAEUEUAUEAUEUAEUAUEUAUEUAEUAUUUEAUEUAEUAUEUAEUEAU
EAUEAUEUAEUUAEUEAUEAUAEUAEAUEUEAUAEUUEUAEUEA
This shirt comes from the World Cup qualification effort for the 1998 tournament. UAE came close to qualifying that year. They entered the last two games of the Final Round clinging onto second place in their group. Both were to be played at home. In a collapse more or less equal to this year’s Detroit Tigers, UAE took one point from the two games while Japan leapfrogged the Middle Easterners by virtue of two wins. Japan went to the World Cup. UAE stayed home.
None of that helps to explain why UAE and Kelme, best known for putting Blue’s Clues-style paw prints on their products, decided to write out UAE, in diagonal, all over the right sleeve and kidney area of this shirt. Once on the collar too. At least, and this is a tiny victory for anyone who cares what footy shirts look like anywhere in the world, the letters maintain the same color all over the shirt. The U is always red, the A is black and the E is white.
The final bit I would like an answer for is why, on both the sleeve and the right front, is there a uneven block of red underneath an E? There is also a field of white right along the ribcage that could be taken out, but what is up with that Missouri-shaped blood pool? Is this some sort of compromise between the two parties? Unless one of you have the answer for that, I guess I will never know.
AUEUAEUAUEUAEUEUAUAEUEUAUAEUEUAUEAUEUAEUAUEUAUEUAEUAUUUEAUEUAEUAUEUAEUEAU
EAUEAUEUAEUUAEUEAUEAUAEUAEAUEUEAUAEUUEUAEUEA
The sound a vuvuzela makes after Ned gets ahold of it.
I think it’s fairly obvious why the designers included a blood-red Missouri shape. As you’ll undoubtedly recall from American History, the ‘Bleeding Kansas’ uprising between Kansas settlers and those from Missouri ended in roughly 1858 in the lead up to the Civil War.
Given the well-known and dare I say natural, connection between the UAE and antebellum Missouri, the UAE decided to use the Missouri shape to commemorate Missouri’s historic struggle on the (made-up word alert) bivicennialcentennial aka 140 year anniversary of its conclusion.