The 1998/99 Kashima Antlers Asian Cup Winners’ Cup Shirt
One of the fascinating things about football shirts is that the design can change depending on the competition, even within the same season.
Today’s shirt is a particularly interesting example for football shirt collectors.
It is the 1998/99 AFC Asian Cup Winners’ Cup shirt worn by Kashima Antlers.
（ AFC Asian Cup Winners’ Cup/Home）
This shirt has one major feature that many modern football fans may not be familiar with.
And that is:
It has only one sponsor on the entire shirt.
There is no sponsor on the sleeves or on the back.
The 1998 Kashima Antlers shirt featured a Yellow Hat sponsor on the sleeve, while the 1999 shirt had Yellow Hat on the back.
But on this Asian Cup Winners’ Cup shirt, the only sponsor is TOSTEM, located on the chest.
This was not simply a design choice. It was the result of the competition regulations at the time.
What Was the Asian Cup Winners’ Cup?
For international football fans, it is worth explaining what the AFC Asian Cup Winners’ Cup actually was.
The Asian Cup Winners’ Cup was an international club competition organized by the AFC for the winners of domestic cup competitions across Asia.
As the name suggests, clubs qualified by winning major domestic cup competitions in their respective countries.
In Japan, the winners of the Emperor’s Cup were generally the clubs that qualified for the competition.
Its place in the Asian football landscape was different from today’s AFC Champions League, but it was an important competition for understanding Asian football in the 1990s.
The tournament was discontinued in 2002 and no longer exists today.
That is one of the reasons why shirts made specifically for the competition have such a unique appeal.
Kashima Antlers in the 1998/99 Competition
The Japanese club representing Japan in the 1998/99 Asian Cup Winners’ Cup was Kashima Antlers.
In 1997, Kashima won both the Emperor’s Cup and the J.League Cup, completing a domestic double.
That success earned the club a place in the Asian Cup Winners’ Cup.
The home shirt worn by Kashima in the competition is the model featured in this article.
The Italian Brand “ennerre”
The shirt was produced by the Italian brand ennerre.
Today, giant sportswear brands such as Nike and adidas supply clubs all over the world.
However, ennerre was a major presence in Italian football during the 1980s.
Many Serie A clubs wore ennerre shirts during that era, making the brand one of the names strongly associated with Italian football in the 1980s.
The fact that ennerre produced a shirt for Kashima Antlers, one of Japan’s most prestigious clubs, is another fascinating aspect of this model.
Why Is There Only One Sponsor?
One of the first things you notice about this shirt is the sponsor placement.
Typical J.League shirts from around 1998 often featured sponsors not only on the chest, but also on the sleeves and back.
This Asian Cup Winners’ Cup model, however, has only one sponsor on the chest.
This was due to the AFC’s competition regulations at the time.
For shirts used in the tournament, the number of sponsor advertisements was restricted, with only one sponsor placement permitted.
As a result, there are no sponsors on the sleeves or back, unlike the shirt used for regular J.League matches.
For football shirt collectors, differences created by competition regulations are particularly fascinating.
The Player’s Name Appears Instead
While the shirt has fewer sponsors, it features another detail that was relatively unusual in the J.League at the time.
That detail is player name printing.
The name on this shirt is:
Akira Narahashi
In the 1990s J.League, it was not yet common for clubs to use shirts with player names on the back for every match, as they do today.
That makes a player-name shirt from the 1998/99 Asian Cup Winners’ Cup particularly interesting to collectors.
Akira Narahashi and the Number 22
Akira Narahashi was a right-sided player who also enjoyed a successful career with the Japanese national team.
At the 1998 FIFA World Cup in France, he played in all three of Japan’s matches as a right wing-back.
Narahashi joined Kashima Antlers from Bellmare Hiratsuka in 1997.
And his shirt number has an interesting story of its own.
In 1997, he wore number 32.
In 1998, he wore number 22.
From 1999 onward, he wore the familiar number 2.
This means that the number 22 on this shirt was a shirt number Narahashi used for just one season.
Since he is much more strongly associated with number 2, both at club level and with the national team, his 1998-only number 22 makes this particular shirt even more unusual.
Kashima Finished Third in Asia
Kashima Antlers enjoyed a strong run in the 1998/99 Asian Cup Winners’ Cup.
They ultimately finished third in the competition.
After winning domestic titles in Japan, Kashima also made their presence felt on the Asian stage.
This shirt is therefore a piece of memorabilia from the period when Kashima Antlers were competing in international competition across Asia.
The Fascinating Differences Between Competitions
The more football shirts you collect, the more you notice that shirts from the same season can have subtle differences depending on the competition.
In the J.League, the shirt could feature multiple sponsors.
In an AFC competition, there was only one sponsor.
In the J.League, player names were not necessarily printed on the shirt.
In international competition, player names could appear.
And in this particular case, the shirt features Akira Narahashi’s number 22, a shirt number he wore for only one season.
Finding these small differences one by one is one of the great pleasures of football shirt collecting.
A Shirt That Captures 1990s Asian Football
At first glance, the 1998/99 Kashima Antlers Asian Cup Winners’ Cup shirt might look like a relatively simple football shirt.
But once you learn the story behind it, it becomes a shirt packed with history.
The now-defunct AFC Asian Cup Winners’ Cup.
The legendary Italian brand ennerre.
A single sponsor due to competition regulations.
Player-name printing.
And Akira Narahashi’s one-season-only number 22.
All of these details are contained in a single shirt.
The number of sponsors and even the player markings could change depending on the competition.
That is one of the great joys of collecting football shirts from the 1990s.
For Kashima Antlers fans, enthusiasts of early J.League history, fans of 1990s Asian football, and collectors of vintage football shirts, this is a particularly rare and fascinating piece of football history.
