Argentina’s alternate shirt record at tournaments

8

For the longest time, Argentina’s “alternate” shirt (the dark blue shirt) has been seen as bad luck for the team. And with the blue shirt getting ready to make an appearance in Tuesday’s Copa America semi-final match, some superstitious people may get nervous.

Since the 1990 World Cup, Argentina has worn the alternate blue shirt 13 times in tournaments (World Cup and Copa America). Three of those 13 came at Copa America tournaments and the other 10 at World Cup’s. So what is the record? I’ve done some digging and here are the results:

Tournament
Team
Result
2015 Copa America
Uruguay Win. 1-0.
2014 World Cup
Germany Loss. 1-0 Extra Time.
2011 Copa America
Uruguay Loss. 1-1 on penalty kicks.
2010 World Cup
Greece Win. 2-0.
2006 World Cup
Germany Loss. 1-1 on penalty kicks.
2006 World Cup
Serbia and Montenegro Win. 6-0.
2004 Copa America
Uruguay Win. 4-2.
2002 World Cup
Sweden Draw. 1-1.
2002 World Cup
Nigeria Win. 1-0.
1998 World Cup
England Win. 2-2 on penalty kicks.
1998 World Cup
Croatia Win. 1-0.
1994 World Cup
Greece Win. 4-0.
1990 World Cup
West Germany Loss. 1-0.
1990 World Cup
Yugoslavia Win. 0-0 on penalty kicks.

That equals to 9 wins, 4 losses and 1 draw if you want to count the outcome of the match (as FIFA doesn’t count penalty kick losses a an official “loss” but rather a “draw”).

The reason why it’s seen as bad luck for many is because Argentina lost the 1990 World Cup final, wore it twice at the 2002 World Cup (which was a disaster for the team), wore it on the penalty shootout elimination at the 2006 World Cup and wore it in the final of the 2014 World Cup.

8 Comments

  1. Argentina also scored 6 goals against Serbia Montenegro wearing the away kit at the 2006 world cup. 😛 The shirt has nothing to do with an Argentina victory.

  2. Haha, yes Dfox1942, you’re right. Only reason I started at 1990 is because that’s when a lot of people see it as when the bad luck started!

  3. Maradona wore the dark blues when he ran passed what, 5 defenders and a goalkeeper to score against the Red coats! or was it 6 defenders?

Comments are closed.