On Romanian Football: National Team Goalkeeper kits 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
Away white: National team away kit 2021–2023
Joma Kits Timeline: Joma Kits timeline
Below there is a closer look on the goalkeeper kits:
Intro
The goalkeepers kits since 2015 started to be more and more colourful. Joma provided every time at least 3 goalkeeper color kit variations. Their design was not anything special in particular and they were similar to the one used by the players but the only difference was in the color hue which was more vivid.
Recently I found some pictures of the National Team from couple of friendly games in the 90s where the national team crest is not even printed on the goalkeeper shirts. Which means to me that those GK shirts did not matter as much as a field player shirt back then. But I also think the goalkeeper kits did not get so much love from the adidas design team. I am saying this because Romania National Team played only in Adidas template ever since they signed the contract until it ended in 2015, not everybody could do what Jorge Campos did with his company ACA Sport.
Romanian fans do not have an affinity for the Romanian goalkeeper shirt in particular. Like we have our special relationship with the 1994 World Cup shirt. We never liked a model to say so but we also never complained about a particular one like how the “old timers” fans complain about the Bruised Banana design used in the early 90s. We cared more about the name on the back.
Romanian goalkeeper shirts are a very powerful artefact, I believe so. National team always had solid goalkeepers that were never changed on a regular basis. For example Bogdan Stelea was the main goalkeeper in the 90s, 1988 to 2005, with 17 years of service. Bogdan Lobont picked up afterwards in the 00s, 1998–2014, with 15 years of service. Ciprian Tatarusanu followed up in the 10s, 2009–2020, with 10 years of service. These names are icons. They are the main goalkeepers of a football generation and they seen it all.
Which means when we would see a goalkeeper shirt that we recognise from visual memory we immediately say this is Stelea’s shirt. We do not remember dates, games, competitions or seasons in particular. Any adidas template that was used is immediately attached to that particular goalkeeper era. If you would show me an adidas goalkeeper template shirt from 00s, like Romania used, I would instantly say this is what Lobont used to wear. And I would not know the year or season.
The goalkeepers shirts are like something “attached” to a name down into the history of Romanian football kits. It brings back instant memories. Like a Polaroid my brain ejects a grainy, sepia-toned, memory by just seeing an adidas GK template shirt from the past 30 years.
Romanian fans instantly do remember goalkeeper shirts by recalling a bad or a good moment of that particular goalkeeper.
Debut
The debut of the new Joma Goalkeeper kits happened in the group stage game Romania U21 1:1 Netherlands U21, 24.03.2021, counting for UEFA European Championship Under-21. Andrei Vlad used the coral variant.
The debut of the green variant was in the game Romania 3:2 North Macedonia, 25.03.2021, counting for World Cup 2022 qualifiers.
The debut of the black variant was in the game Hungary U21 1:2 Romania U21, 27.03.2021, counting for UEFA European Championship Under-21.
Details on Romania National Team goalkeeper shirts
Design is the same as the field players shirts only the color is different
Fun fact(s):
- the black variant was the most used one by men’s senior and youth teams (U21, U20) in 14 games. The green variant was the second most used one in 11 games. And the coral the less used one in 6 games*
- the black variant is also the most successful one as the teams won 6 games while goalkeepers used it, 5 games were won while using the green and only 1 win in the coral variant*
- the least successful one is also the black and green with 5 games lost, 2 lost while using the coral variant*
- 3 games drawn in black, 3 in coral and 1 in green*
- the first game in coral shirts a white font was used, that was changed for the next matches into a blue due to color contrast issues
*as of May 2022
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/
On Romanian Football articles:
Universitatea Craiova kits 2020–2021
Romania National Team kit 2021–2023
2021–2022 brands in Romanian First League
