2010 was a historic year for the Slovakia national soccer team. For the first time ever, the soccer collective managed to qualify for the FIFA World Cup a tournament that doubled as the second time that the white and blue hues of the Slovakia football shirts had appeared in an international tournament of any sort (with the first being the 2000 Summer Olympics). Unfortunately, the team was not able to repeat the feat this year, and will therefore not have a presence at this summer's World Cup.
However, Slovakia is still fighting for more international recognition, and that will start with a push for qualification at FIFA's 2016 European Championship. As Slovakia prepares to fight for a Euro 2016 berth, the Soccer Box store is already ready for it. We have stock available of the Slovakia home jersey 2014 2015, one of the shirts that the Slovakia team will wear in its qualification campaign.
These new Slovakia football shirts have the look of a team ready to break through to global recognition for the first time. The aforementioned home jersey is a comfortable Dry Cell Puma shirt that is white with blue trim. In addition to the Puma logo, the shirt boasts a number of badges and crests representing both Slovakia's soccer heritage and the country as a whole. The away shirt, meanwhile, inverts the colors so that blue is the dominating hue.
A Campaign for Something More
So when can you see the Slovakia home jersey 2014 2015 in action? As mentioned above, the shirt will be a prime piece of the uniform during the Slovakia team's campaign for Euro 2016 inclusion. Ever since Czechoslovakia broke apart in 1992, the Slovakia team has struggled to qualify for global soccer events, starting with the 1996 European Championships and persisting through now.
This year, the Slovakia team players and their fans are hoping to subvert that unappealing trend. The first steps to do so will be made this September, as Slovakia enters into UEFA Group C to fight for a qualification slot.
It won't be an easy fight: the Slovakia football shirts and their wearers don't have a history of excelling in the Euro qualification stage, and while their group contains several not-terribly-challenging opponents (Macedonia, Belarus, and Luxembourg), it also includes arguably the best team on the planet (Spain) and another (Ukraine) standing as a challenging opponent.
Most current predictions have Spain easily winning the group and the Ukraine coming in a distant second, with Slovakia finishing in third. The Euro qualification system works in such a way that the top two teams in each group automatically qualify for the tournament, while most third place teams enter into a playoff to save their chances at qualification.
The Qualifying Schedule
Whether or not Slovakia will end up in that qualifying playoff remains to be seen. For now, though, fans can expect to see Slovakia take the field for Euro qualification starting in October and running at least through autumn 2015.
Slovakia's first match will be an away game against the Ukraine on September 8, but fans will get to wear their Slovakia home jersey 2014 2015 a month later, on October 9, when Slovakia faces Spain at home. Additional 2014 matches will take place on October 12 (away, against Belarus) and November 15 (also away, against Macedonia).
Qualifying matches will continue in 2015, when Slovakia will finally have the opportunity to play a few more home games. Home matches against Luxembourg (March 27), Macedonia (June 14), the Ukraine (September 8), and Belarus (October 9) will be played throughout next year. Slovakia's last two football matches of the qualifying campaign, meanwhile, will take place on September 5 and October 12, 2015 (against Spain and Luxembourg, respectively).
Will these 10 matches end with the Slovakia national football team making it to the European Championship tournament for the first time? We will have to wait a long time still before that question will be answered, but you can prepare for the matches today by heading over to Soccer Box and checking out our selection of Slovakia football shirts for next season.
Team Fights for Slovakia Football Shirts to Appear in More International Tournaments
- June 12, 2014