Wednesday, December 17, 2008

The Good, The Bad, The WTF

To date, I have stayed away from goalkeeper's shirts for a couple of reasons. One, they are too easy of a mark. Two, there's just so many bad ones out there. Look, I could spend a couple of months eye-raping you with Jorge Campos specials. Then I would move on to the Petr Cech special Chelsea shirt before I went back and revisited the early-90s adidas line. You wouldn't be happy, and I would be sick of it.

So why break it this week? Simply put, this isn't like the rest of them I've come across. Sure, it's busy, but it's not bright, so that's a start. Plus it's a short sleeve keeper shirt (which I traditionally hate), so you could wear it out if you like. Plus it has Cyrillic writing. Game over.


We could play a game with this. Kind of life those web ads which ask how many triangles do you see (the answer will surprise you!). How many stars do you see? The answer will hurt you. Look, we get it about the stars, alright? Red Star is the club name, and then you have a whole bunch of stars on your shirt. Yay for literalism. Boo for my eyes.

To me, and maybe it's just the season, this looks like a poinsettia. Yeah, it's probably just the season. I don't remember having seen a red, white and black poinsettia before.

One other thing struck me about this shirt. To see it, you will probably have to click on the shirt to enlarge it, or just follow this link. Looking at the badge, I was struck by the Cyrillic letters ФК. My base knowledge of the sounds of the language, confirmed through the internets, tell me that these letters correspond to F and (duh) K. Was that a tiny message to other clubs? Or am I just reading into things and placing vowels in the middle based on my dirty mind habits? That missing vowel could make it FaK, FeK, FiK, FoK, FyK, or one other one.

Turns out that those crazy Cyrils (I don't think that's right) transliterate Club as Klub. They don't need a stupid hard C to do K's job. They do, however, use a soft K to do a soft C's job. So, yeah, FK is Football Klub, and then you read the red star, and that's the club name. Stupid Cyrils.

My answer is 12, by the way, though I'm not sure how many stars are on the back. Remind me to never do keeper shirts again.

7 comments:

EbullientFatalist said...

Jeez. As if Former Yugoslavia wasn't already confusing enough.

The NY Kid said...

Plus it's a short sleeve keeper shirt (which I traditionally hate)

Nancy-boy hates the short sleeves, eh? I wear them even in the winter for intimidation purposes.

phil said...

That kit is a danger to Amerkuh.

Bigus Dickus said...

Woah, that shirt just sucked me into another dimension..One where blind folk design football shirts.

Jacob said...

@NY Kid
Figures. Being French and all. The reason I hated short sleeve keeper shirts from the start was Fabian Barthez wearing them in the CL final of 93. That stupid floppy haircut he had combined with his Gallic attitude (you know the one I'm talking about) really turned me off.

Now I see SSKS and think "douche". Though I'm sure you are excluded (somewhat).

The Fan's Attic said...

re: SSKS

I think keepers that wear them are idiots. If your diving all over the ground, wouldn't you prefer not to have permanent strawberries on your elbows, forearms and upper arms?

re: the Red Star shirt

It's a Kappa shirt...I've always loved the Kappa logo, but that's just my teenage mentality.

Bigus Dickus said...

I used to break dance in a Kappa shell suit. Then I turned 13.