Alajuelense Third football shirt 2023 - 2024

2023 - 2024 Alajuelense third football shirt. Alajuelense third kit used during the 2023-24 season, although as of writing it is still to be used during the current semester.

This mainly gray shirt commemorates \"La Marcha del Ladrillo\" (The March of Bricks, which happened on Sept. 27th, 1949), an event in which the students of the city of Alajuela (as well as the general public) after being assembled by schoolteacher Armando Mórux Sancho, collaborated with the construction of the stadium\'s walls by buying a brick per person and depositing it in the stadium\'s site. Turnaround was very successful as a total 1.139.052 bricks were gathered.

The walled perimeter that resulted from the brick laying does not survive on its entirety to this day, as some of it was demolished when the stadium was renovated and expanded between 1979 and 1985.

Alajuelense, while failing once more to win the league title on the 2023 Apertura (as of writing, almost a third of the 2024 Clausura has been played and the team is yet to start their CONCACAF Champions Cup campaign), will not fully leave the season empty-handed as it\'s been regrettably customary; as silverware was added during the second semester of 2023 after winning an elusive 11th Cup title (the previous one going 45 years back--the Costa Rican Cup was been irregularly contested since 1977 with only six tournaments played since, out of which Alajuelense did not participate in the 1984 and 1996 ones, and got eliminated in the remaining ones); as well as the inaugural CONCACAF Central American Cup which was won unbeaten, by beating Nicaraguan revelation club Real Estelí on a 4-1 aggregate on the final.

Alajuelense won their CCAC\'s four group matches, won both matches against Cartaginés in the quarterfinals, and drew four-all against Herediano on the semifinals; edging them on penalties due to away goals not being a tiebreaker as both matches ended 2-2 on regular time. Alajuelense also won the Costa Rican Cup unbeaten (which was a must, as the knockout rounds were single-matched, with the final being both single-matched and played on neutral ground), after beating Municipal Liberia by 2-1 (being within minutes of going to penalties as the winning goal was scored in injury time), Guanacasteca by 2-0, and Saprissa (which in itself was the very first time in which a Clásico doubled as a Cup final) by 2-0.

Shirt #8 is used by polarizing forward Johan Venegas. Venegas returned to the club in early 2021 to virtually no one\'s liking--while he departed Saprissa at the end of 2020, he got there on early 2018 while under the impression that he was going to return to Alajuela after his MLS journey ended. Fandom has been largely indifferent to Venegas (rather than being fully hostile) due to the fact that he\'s scored 58 league goals (67 in all competitions) since 2021, while being the first Alajuelense player in scoring over 20 cumulative league goals in a season (with 22 total during the 2022-23 season) since forwards Jonathan McDonald (31) and Róger Rojas (20), both in the 2017-18 season (Rojas scored his during the 2018 Clausura, though; as he was part of Honduran powerhouse Olimpia during the 2017 Apertura). He is yet to score on the 2024 Clausura due to him both serving a 4-match suspension and nursing an injury.

Venegas however is blamed for Alajuelense\'s debacle in the 2023 Clausura\'s Grand Final return match in which he missed a crucial goal which would have broken the deadlock, and his goal tally while respectable, would be a lot larger if not for the chances he misses.

The above shirt was obtained from the kit room (and having one previous owner) due to it having the Liga Promérica and CCAC patches (which are not in sale to the public) and it featuring electric car manufacturer BYD in the lower back (which is not present in neither shirts\' store replicas).

Alajuelense did not use their third shirt during their CCAC run, making this specimen a rare unused match-prepared one.