A supporters' version shirt with the same perks as its player issue counterpart
Persita Tangerang's decision in retaining their 2020 shirt for the 2021/22 Liga 1 Indonesia season proves to be a masterstroke for everyone involved. All of Persita's sponsors from the abolished 2020 season decided to stick around for the 2021/22 campaign despite the uncertainties surrounding its kick-off. As a way to thank them for their commitment, Persita decided to retain their 2020 shirt for the new season, which in a way helps fans by preventing those who already have a shirt from splurging extra money for a new one, while at the same time allowing fans who haven't got themselves one a chance to purchase without the fear of being missing out.
Having obtained my Persita shirt during the 2020 season suspension, I guess Persita's decision also helped me as I don't have to buy a new shirt for #Project18, and the project can be started right away without any prolonged delays. So, without further ado, here's a review of Persita Tangerang's 2020/22 away supporters' version shirt!
The Cisadane Warriors - Who are Persita?
Founded in 1940 and admitted into the Football Federation of Indonesia (PSSI) in 1953, Persita are the best-known representative of Banten Province in Indonesian football, and alongside the likes of Persikad Depok, Persikabo Kabupaten Bogor, and Persipasi Bekasi among others, they also represent the Greater Jakarta region (Jabodetabek).
Persita's nicknames include the Cisadane Warriors, which refers to the Cisadane River that flows through the Tangerang region, and the Ayam Wareng aka the Fierce Roosters. The Ayam Wareng itself is a breed of chicken cultivated within Tangerang Regency and has hence become one of the region's icons since 2015.
Despite bearing "Tangerang" in their name, a common mistake made by a lot of people is assuming that Persita are based in the city of Tangerang - which is somewhat true since they spent a good chunk of their history at the Benteng Stadium in the city's downtown. But in reality, Persita represents the Tangerang Regency, the greater area encapsulating the cities of Tangerang and South Tangerang. With the city of Tangerang having separated off the regency in 1993, said city's government established their own football club in 1994, Persikota Tangerang, who are now plying their trade in the Liga 3 underneath the ownership of actor Gading Marten.
As for Persita, they are one of the founding members of the Liga Indonesia Premier Division in the 1994/95 season, having played in the amateur Galatama leagues prior to that. Their biggest achievement to date is finishing as league runners-up in the 2002 season and appearing in the AFC Champions League qualifiers in 2003, losing 1-0 on aggregate to Thailand's Osotspa FC (now Jumpasri United).
Persita's downfall began when the fully-professional Indonesia Super League (ISL) was established and being ill-equipped to become independent of their regency government who had backed them for such a long time, Persita became languished in the Premier Division, now the second tier of Indonesian football. Add a fatwa from the Tangerang branch of the Indonesia Council of Ulema (MUI) that bans football from Tangerang due to repeated violent clashes between Persita and Persikota fans into the equation, and you'll get a bleak period of mediocrity in the Pendekar Cisadane's history.
Persita did get promoted into the ISL during this bleak period in the 2011/12 season however they spent their two years there flirting with relegation, finally succumbing to the drop in the 2014 season.
The year 2014 turned out to be a turning point for Persita's history as the Tangerang Regency government started building a stadium in Kelapa Dua, which would serve as Persita's new home ground. The Tangerang MUI also dismissed their fatwa during this period, thus allowing Persita the prospect of returning home for the first time in ages. This kickstarted a long and slow period of recovery that saw Persita came up short in being promoted out of Liga 2, falling in the second round in 2017 and agonizingly being beaten in the third-place playoff in 2018. 2018 was also the season that sees them return to the Tangerang Regency as they finally play at the brand-new Benteng Taruna Stadium.
Persita's perseverance and patience were finally paid off in 2019, as they were promoted to the top flight of Indonesian football as Liga 2 runners-up.
Prior to the 2020 season, Persita etched themselves into Indonesian football history as being the first football club in the country who sold their stadium naming rights to a sponsor, with the Benteng Taruna Stadium being renamed into the Indomilk Arena. This follows an example that is mostly used in Thailand within the context of Southeast Asian football, with sponsored stadium names such as the Chang Arena, the Singha Stadium, the Leo Stadium, and the Mitr Phol Stadium being the norm there.
A New Logo, A New Chapter in History
The buildup towards the 2020 season saw Persita changing their logo, which still incorporates the images of a torch and a fort. The torch represents the spirit of Persita's players in trying their best to help their club in their never-ending quest for glory, while the fort, which represents Tangerang's past as being a fortified region in pre-independence Indonesia, symbolizes the strong determination that these players have in making the Persita name proud. These two symbols are incorporated into a purple-and-gold shield badge, which was a combined design by two Persita fans who won a logo-designing competition for the club in late 2019.
The color purple itself is the signature color of Persita, which represents the power, wisdom, and ambition of Persita, while the golden edge represents the will of Persita who are always trying to strive for the best. The overall shape of the badge is a representation of Persita's dreams and ambitions of reaching the top, a resilient unit fearless of any danger or opposition that might lie in front of them.
Redefining Power
Persita launched their 2020 shirts in a February 2020 event at the Gading Serpong branch of Holywings. Having produced their shirts in-house since 2019, Persita's 2020 shirts were an improvement compared to the previous ones, utilizing polyester as their main material. The polyester itself utilizes two drift material types, creating a special type of fabric that the Persita in-house production factory calls "double-knit recycled meshwear."
As with many teams in Indonesia, Persita released two versions of their 2020 shirt, the standard player-issue (PI) shirt and the cheaper supporters' version (SV) that are much more durable. However, which makes Persita's SV shirts for 2020 unique is the fact that the club used the same double-knit recycled meshwear for both types of shirts, creating a same sense of experience for those who bought a specific type of shirt. And most importantly, an SV buyer will get the same experience as a PI buyer for a fraction of the price, with SV shirts being sold at Rp229,000 while the PI home shirt is sold for Rp499,000, with the PI away and third shirts are being sold for Rp399,000.
Another interesting gimmick that a Persita SV shirt has is the fact that they're using the same premium TPU 3D material for the club badge as their PI counterparts, a rarity for Indonesian shirts. Typically Indonesian SV shirts had their club badge either sublimated or utilize materials that are cheaper than their PI counterparts. So to see an SV shirt utilizing the same premium materials as their PI counterparts is a refreshing change of things.
Persita's home shirt was released underneath the tagline "Unlock Bravery," while their away counterpart is released underneath the tagline "Redefining Power." Using a raglan-style template that allows different designs to be used on the torso and the arms, the away shirt uses white as its dominant color with dashes of purple on the sleeve-shoulder region. This invokes a tasty color combination that reminds us of the legendary Dragon Ball villain Frieza.
Wearing the Persita away shirt before it was cool
The sleeves and cuffs of the away shirt are a direct copy-and-paste in terms of design from the home shirt, using the same three shades of purple and with the same sublimated flame patterns, with the flame itself coming from the torch in Persita's club badge. Dark purple is used for the lower part of the sleeves, with red being thrown into the cuffs, while the upper sleeves and shoulder use the normal shade of purple. The flame pattern themselves are printed in a lighter shade of purple, while the sections where the normal purple and dark purple meet was designed to resemble a section of the fort symbol in Persita's badge.
Unlike the 2019 shirt that uses an O-shaped collar, the 2020 Persita away shirt, like its home counterpart, uses a V-neck collar, with the collar itself being colored in the same shade of purple as the shoulders. Behind the collar was a black-and-white elastic vertical rib, designed to allow opponents coming from behind to pull the shirt's collar without compromising the entire structure of the shirt itself. Persita's club branding, with their hashtag #5ATUKANS3MANGAT (unite the spirit), was printed behind the rib along with the shirt's sizing detail.
The iconic fort from Persita's badge was sublimated to both the front and the back of the shirt, giving a nice gray watermark-like design to it. The watermark signifies Persita's identity on the shirt, embodying the never-say-die attitude of the Pendekar Cisadane's players in each match.
Despite their close similarity to their PI counterparts, Persita's SV shirts have a couple of noticeable albeit minor differences. First off, the sponsor logos were all sublimated into the shirt instead of using the polyflex rubber printing used on the PI shirts. This plays into the SV shirts' advantage as this means that they are much more durable and have a longer lifespan compared to their PI counterparts.
The other difference lies within a triangular section located on the sides of the shirt. In Persita's PI shirts, this section is made out of a different type of mesh fabric, which accommodates ventilation for the players' bodies. In the SV shirts, this section is created from the same double-knit recycled meshwear as the rest of the shirts.
The shirt's NNS bears a small Persita club badge on the bottom of each number. Quite a nice touch, I must say.
Conclusions and Scoring
All in all, is buying a Persita SV shirt worth it? Yes. Despite the two minor differences, you're essentially getting a much more durable version of the PI shirts, for a much cheaper price. Persita charged Rp100,000 more for a home PI shirt as it's a symbol of the club's pride and glory, which means that more people will buy them and it will offset the difference of revenue that comes with people overlooking the away and third ones. The SV shirts, on the other hand, are all charged with the same Rp229,000 pricetag, as Persita intends them to be bought out by supporters from all walks of life.
Design-wise I prefer the away shirt better than the home and the third, although I would say that I like all three of them. It's just that combination of white and purple is too perfect, creates a nice contrast that is quite easy in the eye which essentially makes the shirt stood out more among others.
And yeah I'm a weeb so I see the Frieza reference straight away haha.
So how would I rate this shirt?
Unlike the Football Shirt Tier Lists, for #Project18 I'll be using a letter-based grading system similar to those used in Japanese video games, ranging from S (the highest) to F (the lowest).
The fact that Persita are able to emulate the player-issue experiences and perks very well in their supporters' version shirt for a much cheaper price places it very high in my rating system, not to mention the amazing color combination that Persita's away shirt for 2020/22 is using. It is indeed an exquisite specimen and it's a shirt worth owning by Persita fans and collectors alike. It's an S from me, the lack of a shirt tag that could make reselling quite tricky notwithstanding.
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