On Romanian Football: National Team Away kit 2021–2023
If you are looking, or interested, for a complete overview of Romania National kits 2021–2023 by Joma you might want to check:
Home yellow: National Team kit 2021–2023
Away blue: National Team away kit 2021–2023
Joma Kits Timeline: Joma Kits timeline
Below we take a closer look and focus on the alternative away kit version, the white one:
Intro
For the first time in modern history (after the fall of communism 1989) red color has been dropped as an away option. I mentioned about a mythical superstition in a blog article that red might bring bad luck to Romanian football. Red kits are associated for the Romanian “old timers” fans with the World Cup quarterfinal game lost in 1994 at penalties.
With the new away kits, blue and white, there is no red to be seen. The home kit is yellow, the away kit is fully blue and this third version kit is fully white.
Will this change the course of Romanian kits history? Maybe.
We never know if red will ever come back.
Romania played for the last time in white between 2007 and 2009, that includes Euro 2008 as well. White was dropped in 2010 because the national team sponsor at that time, Ursus Breweries, asked specifically the home kit to be yellow and the away one to switch back to red.
Last game played in white at that time was in June 2009 against Lithuania counting for World Cup 2010 qualifiers.
Debut
The debut of the new away white Joma kit happened in the group stage game Armenia 3:2 Romania from 31 March 2021 counting for World Cup 2022 Qatar qualifiers.
As of July 2022, these are all the games played in white shirts by the Senior team:
The only place to buy authentic Romanian Joma shirts is from the official webshop: magazin.frf.ro but the white one is not available for general sale but would be from autumn 2022
Details on Romania National Team away shirt
Fun fact:
Red and color psychology
There is a legend that red increases sports performance.
Of course that is not true but according to studies on color psychology red helps somehow to win. Studies show that wearing the color red can actually put your team at a significant advantage for a number of psychological reasons.
In 2005, sports psychologists Russell Hill and Robert Barton conducted a study examining the effect of the color red in 1v1 boxing, tae kwon do, Greco-Roman-wresting, and freestyle-wrestling matches in the 2004 Olympic Games.
In each event, the Olympic staff randomly assigned red or blue clothing to each competitor. The results found, “Where there was a large point difference — presumably because one contestant was far superior to the other — color had no effect on the outcome. Where there was a small point difference, the effect of color was sufficient to tip the balance.”
55% of bouts were won by the competitor in red and in closely fought bouts the percentage rocketed to 62%.
Their research found that both male and female athletes in red scored significantly higher in aggression and dominance than the athletes in blue or grey.
In athletics, researchers are starting to show that red substantial impacts performance whether it is the actual aggression that is outputted by the athlete, or the intimidation felt from the competitor in response to the color red.
Further reading:
Barton, Robert, Russell Hill. (2005). “Influence of Red Jersey Color on Physical Parameters in Combat Sports.” https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23404878/
I regularly post stories about Romania match worn shirts on Instagram.
If you want to get in touch with me you can find me there under the profile name onromanianfootball: https://www.instagram.com/onromanianfootball/
