2018 MLS Kits

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

17 hours ago, pepis21 said:

I dissagre with you, when you looking at white Real jersey you don't think "Oh this is a Fly Emirates team" or red Man United "Oh this is a Chevrolet team". First you see club then sponsor.

 

You are completely wrong about that.  It is impossible to deny that the biggest logo — that of the sponsor — dominates the shirt and is the first thing that anyone sees.

One time Paul Lukas, who knows embarrassingly little about soccer*, listed a few items that he had lying about and that he was giving away.  One of these items was a Chivas shirt.  But Lukas called it "a Bimbo shirt".  And that is precisely what it would be to every observer who does not already know about Mexican football.  That so many people can just accept and even prefer the improper intrusion of advertising is truly saddening.  The bad guys have won.

 

5 hours ago, MJWalker45 said:

18 hours ago, seasaltvanilla said:

Two more great examples highlighted here of how shirt sponsors ruin the aesthetic of soccer (or any sport). People think of the sponsor before they think of the club.

I disagree. A large blank space in the middle of the jersey looks worse than having a sponsor there. It's how the sponsor is displayed that can take away from the shirt though. 

So don't have a large blank space.  Make the crest bigger, and/or add the number.  This is how it is done on the national team shirts.

 

 

As a fan I care only about club football; I am actually kind of hostile to the entire idea of national teams.  So it pains me to say that national team uniforms set the standard in aesthetics.

 

* I want to be clear that it is not necessarily embarrassing for any given individual not to know or care about soccer.  But someone whose specialty is sports uniforms must be able to recognise a Chivas shirt, which is amongst the best known uniforms in the entire world of sport.

[seasaltvanilla]

19 hours ago, pepis21 said:

I dissagre with you, when you looking at white Real jersey you don't think "Oh this is a Fly Emirates team" or red Man United "Oh this is a Chevrolet team". First you see club then sponsor. Ok some sponsors are heavily related with club like Sharp with United, Carlsberg with Liverpool, Reebok with Bolton, Abn Amro with Ajax, etc. but this is an other case.

 

No, you see the club first then the sponsor. If I don't know the club the first thing I see is Fly Emirates. And the Chevrolet logo looks absolutely hideous on Man U, especially since it's a classic American car company on the front of a premier English team.

 

7 hours ago, MJWalker45 said:

I disagree. A large blank space in the middle of the jersey looks worse than having a sponsor there. It's how the sponsor is displayed that can take away from the shirt though. 

 

The only reason kits have large blank spaces on the front is to make room for the sponsor. You really wouldn't rather have the creative potential opened up by getting that real estate back? Look at Minnesota United and how popular the loon wing remains. You can see that wing a mile away and know immediately it's MNUFC. The Target bullseye...nope (as seen in this very thread).

 

I understand the historical and financial reasons for clubs to have shirt sponsors, especially in the lower leagues, but man has it made it an ugly sport to watch.

[Foxxtrot44]

One team in one season ended all arguments in favor of mucking up the middle of a shirt with an ad.

 

[pepis21]

4 hours ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

 

You are completely wrong about that.  It is impossible to deny that the biggest logo — that of the sponsor — dominates the shirt and is the first thing that anyone sees.

One time Paul Lukas, who knows embarrassingly little about soccer*, listed a few items that he had lying about and that he was giving away.  One of these items was a Chivas shirt.  But Lukas called it "a Bimbo shirt".  And that is precisely what it would be to every observer who does not already know about Mexican football.  That so many people can just accept and even prefer the improper intrusion of advertising is truly saddening.  The bad guys have won.

 

Lukas is a wrong example, because as you said, he doesn't know much about football.

 

There is also a differences between two of us. I'm looking at this from European point of view where sponsors on jerseys being from ages almost in every sport, so we are used to it. You looking at this from US point of view where sponsors on jerseys came in late 90's and it was only on football stuff (until last year and NBA).

Show Chivas jersey to any European fan and he might not recognize Chivas, but surely he won't say a "Bimbo Team".

[-kj]

8 hours ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

I am actually kind of hostile to the entire idea of national teams

 

Aside:  You have some amazingly weird ideas.  Just really out there.

 

Then again, I have an aversion to front numbers, and don't understand why they're required for national teams, never mind in some other leagues/competitions (JLeague and AFC Champions League come to mind).

[Red Wolf]

I get being annoyed with the giant sponsors on the front of jerseys. It bothered me when I first started watching that games looked like Samsung vs. Best Buy or something. It also made me dislike the belligerent soccer fans that blathered on and on about soccer not being as corporate as other sports (it's at least as corporate, if not more). That said, it looks odd to see club teams without a jersey sponsor at this point. I think everybody in MLS has one now, but I remember several years back when a lot of teams still didn't have them. Heck, when I first started watching, there were still teams like Kansas City with their own wordmarks across the front which just seems totally bizarre now. 

 

EDIT: Watching SKC and Houston and just noticed that the Dynamo don't have a jersey sponsor. So there's that. 

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

6 hours ago, Mockba said:

15 hours ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

I am actually kind of hostile to the entire idea of national teams

 

Aside:  You have some amazingly weird ideas.  Just really out there.

 

Being opposed to nationalism is not a "weird idea"; it is a moral principle. Furthermore, anti-nationalism was a deeply held position of Zamenhof, the creator of Esperanto. (His opposition to nationalism was why he broke with Zionism.)  It is certainly not necessary to adopt that viewpoint in order to speak Esperanto; there are people of all ideologies who use the language. But the recognition of nationalism as a great evil was one of the many things that drew me 30 years ago to this international language that I use daily and that has become a core part of my identity as a mondcivitano (global citizen).

On the practical level, better than national teams would be international competitions amongst league all-star teams: rather than England playing Germany, we'd have the Premier League all-stars playing the Bundesliga all-stars, and so forth.  For some leagues the teams would be made up almost entirely of players from that country anyway.  But the Premier League team would have a huge advantage in that it has players of so many different nationalities.  And this would inevitably accelerate the process in other European leagues of bringing in players from various countries.

 

By contrast, in poorer countries this arrangement would provide the opportunity for their players to play at home. Brazil struggles with the outflow of its great players; Pele had to make an appeal to Neymar to stay with Santos for an additional year before he left for Barcelona. Under this plan, he'd likely spend his entire career at Santos, as Pele did until he came to the Cosmos at age 35.  As another example, right now Ivorian players have to play in England or France or elsewhere else in Europe in order to get experience and be picked for their national team. But, if we had league all-star teams instead of national teams, then companies would be falling over themselves to sponsor a top-level league in the Ivory Coast; and players would know that playing in that league was the way to get to the World Cup.

 

The closest that we ever got to this was in 1976 when an NASL all-star team took on the national teams of England, Italy, and Brazil.  Here are Pele and Bobby Moore kitted out for Team America.  (Should have been "Team NASL"; but whatever.)

 

This is obviously a dream that has 0% chance of ever happening. But it would be a much better arrangement, from the standpoints both of morality and of competition.

 

 

6 hours ago, Red Wolf said:

I get being annoyed with the giant sponsors on the front of jerseys. It bothered me when I first started watching that games looked like Samsung vs. Best Buy or something. It also made me dislike the belligerent soccer fans that blathered on and on about soccer not being as corporate as other sports (it's at least as corporate, if not more). That said, it looks odd to see club teams without a jersey sponsor at this point. I think everybody in MLS has one now,

 

The Houston Dynamo do not have an ad on their shirts.  And they look fabulous.

 

 

 

 

 

 

6 hours ago, Red Wolf said:

Heck, when I first started watching, there were still teams like Kansas City with their own wordmarks across the front which just seems totally bizarre now. 

 

The problem with that Kansas City uniform was not the wordmark but the crest.  The shirt would have looked better without the crest (which was pretty disastrous).  Even still, the shirt as a whole looked rather nice.

 

 

Anyone seeing that will know for sure that it is a Kansas City shirt. By contrast, anyone seeing the team's current shirt would see the large Ivy ad, and not the (vastly improved) crest, which is barely noticeable alongside it.

But having the team name on the front works beautifully when you have a really nice wordmark, as exemplified by the Tampa Bay Rowdies of the original NASL.

 

 

 

(This also illustrates the correct size of a crest on the Cosmos' shirt, so that there is no big space in the middle.)

 

 

 

 

11 hours ago, pepis21 said:

There is also a differences between two of us. I'm looking at this from European point of view where sponsors on jerseys being from ages almost in every sport, so we are used to it.

 

Having an advertisement on the uniform is a relatively recent phenomenon in English football, dating only from the late 1970s. Before that, the uniforms were comparable to the Cosmos shirt seen on Beckenbauer above, with a crest and that's it.

 

 

 

 

 

And don't forget that Barcelona had a policy against shirt advertisement until as recently as 2006.  And they always looked great.

 

 

 

We need a fundamental understanding that the only logo that belongs on a team's shirt is the team's own.

[Gothamite]

5 hours ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

Being opposed to nationalism is not a "weird idea"; it is a moral principle. Furthermore, anti-nationalism was a deeply held position of Zamenhof, the creator of Esperanto.

 

That is hardly a compelling argument.

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

6 hours ago, Gothamite said:

11 hours ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

Being opposed to nationalism is not a "weird idea"; it is a moral principle. Furthermore, anti-nationalism was a deeply held position of Zamenhof, the creator of Esperanto.

 

That is hardly a compelling argument. 

 

It's not meant to be an argument; it's just a little historical context.

 

An argument would entail elaborating on the moral and ideological equivalence between nationalism and racism — which, alas, would be way off topic here. Instead, I threw in a brief historical aside with a personal connection, and then got back to sports. Mi tiel faris por konduti laŭ la reguloj.

[Kevin W.]

So basically you're saying that supporting the idea of having a team that represents a country leads to racism? Interesting.

[Gothamite]

No worries.  Just seemed like an odd transition to me. 

 

But then again, so is conflating patriotism and nationalism.  

[upperV03]

Getting back on topic, NYCFC has some new white socks for their primary kits that they wore on June 3rd against Orlando, and then again on Saturday against Vancouver:

Personally, I’m not a huge fan. For one thing, I’m not really sure why they felt the need to add them to the rotation since there isn’t a clashing issue with the light blue socks, and since they already wear the light blue/white/light blue alternative combo quite a bit. Also, I don’t think the white socks fit in that well with the rest of the kit. At the very least the Adidas logo and stripes should be navy to match the shorts, and I’d probably make the band below the stripes navy as well.

[Gothamite]

Yeah. That’s a bad look.  White socks haven’t been their thing since 2015, and the blues look so much better. 

[Jer15]

On 8/3/2018 at 6:00 PM, seasaltvanilla said:

Two more great examples highlighted here of how shirt sponsors ruin the aesthetic of soccer (or any sport). People think of the sponsor before they think of the club.

Actually, my example of the Phillips/PSV connection is rooted a lot deeper than just a sponsorship on the front of the jersey.

If you trace back PSV's roots it started as a club for the workers at the Phillips plant in Eindhoven, so while the sponsorship was very long standing, it also had deeper meaning. 

In this case, the sponsor was literally the reason the club exists. 

 

On 8/4/2018 at 11:10 PM, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

We need a fundamental understanding that the only logo that belongs on a team's shirt is the team's own.

 We do not need anything.

 

Sorry if that comes off as hostile to start. I don't mean for it to be.

 

You have your feelings on jersey sponsorship (and you are entitled to them) just as others are entitled to theirs and this will probably be a never ending topic on the sport.

 

My 2 cents? If it means I only have commercials at half time, then I'm cool with jersey sponsorship. 

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

On 8/5/2018 at 11:25 AM, Gothamite said:

conflating patriotism and nationalism.

 

On 8/5/2018 at 11:25 AM, Kevin W. said:

So basically you're saying that supporting the idea of having a team that represents a country leads to racism? Interesting.

 

The idea that there is some meaningful distinction to be made amongst patriotism, nationalism, and racism is laughable. These are various names for the same foul ideology.

 

National teams certainly contribute to this ugly phenomenon. Every time England play Germany, every time Germany play Poland, every time the U.S. play Mexico, people feel free to say the most heinous things, things that would otherwise qualify as hate speech. For evidence look at the vitriolic and unaoplogetically racist responses to Landon Donovan's good-natured television commercial during this year's World Cup in which he wished Mexico success.

 

Still, I won't claim to be pure. I root for England in international football and I possess several England hats; I also have an Italy hat from the World Baseball Classic. 

 

 

12 hours ago, upperV03 said:

NYCFC has some new white socks for their primary kits that they wore on June 3rd against Orlando, and then again on Saturday against Vancouver:

Personally, I’m not a huge fan.

 

Me, neither. The socks should be sky blue, no matter whether the shorts are navy blue or white.

 

The only way that white socks look good is with an all-white kit, such as the cool one that they wore on Earth Day.

 

 

 

 

[kerlonmoura]

14 hours ago, upperV03 said:

Getting back on topic, NYCFC has some new white socks for their primary kits that they wore on June 3rd against Orlando, and then again on Saturday against Vancouver:

Personally, I’m not a huge fan. For one thing, I’m not really sure why they felt the need to add them to the rotation since there isn’t a clashing issue with the light blue socks, and since they already wear the light blue/white/light blue alternative combo quite a bit. Also, I don’t think the white socks fit in that well with the rest of the kit. At the very least the Adidas logo and stripes should be navy to match the shorts, and I’d probably make the band below the stripes navy as well.

 

Looks like they just used their old socks here.

[upperV03]

17 minutes ago, kerlonmoura said:

 

Looks like they just used their old socks here.

Nope, they’re new for this season. Their old white socks from 2015 were just the standard design with the horizontal Adidas stripes at the top:

[Gothamite]

5 hours ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

The idea that there is some meaningful distinction to be made amongst patriotism, nationalism, and racism is laughable. These are various names for the same foul ideology.

 

And that’s where we know you aren’t actually serious. 

 

That’s like saying there’s no difference between pride and arrogance.  Or hunger and gluttony.  Or curiosity and obsession.

 

It would be a sad, lonely world if what you suggested was true, when you and I couldn’t enjoy or even take pride in our city’s wonders without somehow necessarily also endorsing the institutionalized racism that has stained it.

[Gothamite]

2 hours ago, upperV03 said:

Nope, they’re new for this season. Their old white socks from 2015 were just the standard design with the horizontal Adidas stripes at the top:

 

Absolutely true.  These new socks are based on the 2017 template, and match the blue ones introduced with this kit. 

[hendocfc]

They probably existed since 2017 (since adidas have reverted to their older sock design),they just never wore them