France had no third shirt. Those green and white shirts belonged to Kimberley FC, a very small team which plays the Mar del Plata City regional league. The bizarre or scandalous situation (a national team playing a World Cup match with borrowed shirts) had to do with colour clash and TV demands, but it would have been enough if only one of the teams changed to their second white kit. Well, both teams travelled from Buenos Aires to Mar del Plata with white shirts and nothing else to replace them, so one of them had to wear the Kimberley FC shirts.And about TV: nobody had a color TV in Argentina for the 1978 WC. Argentinians fans watched all games in Black & White, although ATC (the national broadcasting system) broadcasted in color for the first time for the rest of the world. It's great to live in the third world.
Where did you get the photo of the Kimberley number 2 shirt?
ReplyDeleteThat shirt was the only one of the set that the French didn't use. The Kimberley kits actually had no numbers, so they had to have numbers ironed onto them before the match could start (hence the 40 minute delay).
There were only 15 outfield players' shirts in the set. Kimberley didn't want 17, 18, 19 and 20 (the official numbers of Lacombe, Rocheteau, Six and Rouyer who were all in the French squad for this game) on their strips, so they just ironed the numbers 2 to 16 onto the shirts. The French players officially numbered 2, 7, 10, 11 and 16 were not involved in this game, so Rocheteau took number 7, Lacombe 10, Rouyer 11 and Six 16 - since none of these players were defenders, none of them wanted to wear the 2 so it was left unused.
Please accept my apologies - this number 2 shirt was worn by a French player that day, although it didn't see match action.
ReplyDeleteI'm watching a DVD of that game now, and Petit, whose official number was 12, is wearing the number 10 shirt. As the number 12 is usually worn by the substitute goalkeeper in Argentina, Kimberley must have insisted that 12 not be ironed onto one of their outfield shirts. Thus Lacombe, one of the French substitutes, must have worn the number 2. He did not come on.