Nowadays, every World Cup has that one surprising African nation. But before Cameroon in 1990, Senegal in 2002 and Ghana in 2006, one African nation had to start this all. It was Zaire, today called Congo, in the 1974 World Cup. Of course, their level at the time made their participation in the most important football tournament look like a “Jamaica below zero” sort of venture. This squad is responsible for putting in the history of the cups of one its funniest moments. Not to mention the 9-0 defeat against Yugoslavia.
Nonetheless, their jerseys were classic. Even though colorful jerseys are not my favorites, Zaire’s 1974 is one of the coolest jerseys in the history of national teams. And on top of that, usually, jerseys of non-existent countries are really cool. Take a closer look here
But it’s not that they came up with cool jerseys in 74. During the 1973 qualifying, the jerseys were already nice, although I wonder why they dropped the red for the cup. Look:
The funny campaign, plus the cool jerseys and players who really seemed to belong to a reggae band turned this squad in a cult in shirts like this. The good old days when people were allowed to smoke on the airplanes.
