Digby

Even with a swing and a miss! There was some ugly desperation hero-ball at the end. Not used to seeing a USWNT team looking panicky.

Other contenders are getting their acts together (well not Canada) while the USWNT... is not. Can't believe I woke up early for that.

I can't imagine even the best of MLS slowing Messi down right now -- Robert Taylor is another story which is what will be the interesting thing for Miami -- but seeing him take on a Puebla or an America would be a compelling watch. Might make this whole silly tournament worth it.

The coverage has been kind of crummy. It's a legitimate nuisance to try to find any info about any of the other 46 teams playing in this tournament on the MLS website or the Apple TV thing. In game I've heard enough from commentators about legacy and MLS's standing as if they're trying to write thinkpieces out loud and in real time (nor do I ever need to see "look, there's DJ Khaled" cutaways again). We'll see how sustainable the entire ecosystem is when the shock wears off. The Retirement League DPs historically don't have a 100% hit rate, so while I'd expect Messi to light it all on fire for a while, I wonder how many of his 35+ buddies will be able to consistently recreate peak form in Florida conditions. I like watching elite players but I also live for schadenfreude, so if this follows the Zlatan model of a star being stunning to watch while the team finishes mid-table anyway, I'm totally cool with that.

I feel about Vlatko the way the rage-frothing tweeters feel about Berhalter. How does depth become a problem for a USWNT? Weird lack of adjustments even when the team looks disjointed. All the xG models suggested that a draw was the fair result but it felt to me a bit like the USA got unlucky with some coin-flip shots in the second half... and that refereeing performance, if you can call it that.

It sure beats the black sun/ball that was suggested in those initial leaked renders a couple years back, but yeah, something looks odd about it being white and how it melds with the white wordmark (while also appearing to run off the edge of the design entirely). I'll call it an upgrade because I always prefer the Suns to lean into this design motif, but they're overthinking it.

Basically how I'm thinking about it. I'm never a fan of nickname jerseys but "Crescent City" and the Pelicans font does at least work nicely with the over-and-under wordmark treatment. Feel like more gold somewhere in there would've done well to feel distinctly Pelicans.

I like that Bay FC made a big show of how their logo has a piece of the bridge from Oakland to SF but they're playing in San Jose. But, it's a really nice stadium and will be good for a quality NWSL team, for sure.

There's just too much weird stuff going on at once on that Chelsea jersey... the yellow/gold/navy 1998-style trim clashes with the iridescent logos which clashes with the Vegas gold number printing. It's three different design themes on the same shirt. (And yeah, none of this is helped by the current Nike template's weird hideous collar design.) re Arsenal's away, I weirdly like the color scheme as garish as it is. However, I hate seeing clubs wear their away kits in matches like the MLS All-Star Game. Would much prefer the classic Arsenal look when they're in the USA on a brand-building exercise, and obviously it wouldn't have clashed with the MLS all-stars wearing black. (Maybe that red print for MLS is too close, but I've seen worse in these matches, and it drives me crazy how often MLS forces its opponent to not wear their classic color schemes when MLS could wear literally any color to accomodate.)

Why do you keep mentioning this scenario of USL selling to the Saudis?

With the title-winning pedigree I think Toronto could've gone pure red/white if they wanted (much as I'm personally not a fan of the Canada's Team thing). On the other hand, I might throw out a red/black/metallic gold with minimal white option for them, if they wanted to tie together their modern brands but not intrude on Houston or Atlanta's traditional territories. Of course, tying together your brand is not seen as a positive in the business offices of the NBA these days.

The Times hasn't really had a great sports section in a while, and has never really been the paper of record locally as far as NY beat writers and such. I would say that the Athletic has been doing the sort of prestige longform reporting that the NYT sports section used to do more of, but I don't really know what the Athletic's mission is anymore, tbh. They do a good job breaking news in certain niches that they own at the national level, I find. Feels like the "local beat for everyone" thing never panned out no matter how many people they poached. For all of Boston's problems I'm glad the Globe at least still has strong sports pages (but take my Dan Shaughnessy -- please!)

Seeing all the pomo spikes in this thread as well as the Industria discussion jogged my memory of the Cape Cod League logo, but it's not as FP in real life as it was in my head. The typeface is more of a serif though maybe from the same pack of Art Deco faux-revival as Industria, and the spikes are actually a goofy asymmetric action explosion. I don't know what this is but it feels vaguely related. WASP Pomo?

The other weird thing about the tournament placement is coming right on the heels of Nations League's finals. Not sure how much of that is still residual spillover from the COVID years and the winter World Cup, or how much is the result of Concacaf's never-ending tinkering with formats. Part of me thinks there ought to be value in these JV tournaments to build a deeper pool and evaluate fringe guys who've just been unlucky with National Team minutes previously but, on the other hand, maybe that's what we have U-23 teams for. Probably good for the US fed to get taken down a peg after a few years of relative success. The program overall may be mostly healthy but not to the point of "we'll take down Concacaf with a C-squad, hell we don't even need to hire a coach" attitudes.

C-squad USMNT :censored:s around too much and finds out indeed, going out in the semis to Panama. The "Berhalter is corrupt and awful but we should hire Callaghan" Twitter contingent frantically search for a new bottle of glue to sniff.

I kind of interpret the ploy as "we don't care about the USSF standards if we get enough people paying for our product and taking it seriously enough". I have my doubts about that part of it but it still might be compelling enough to enhance the minor league product somewhat. Important point is that for now the plan would be between Championship and League 1 only, plus a new league in between the two. League 2 would be left out of the pro/rel pyramid, which I guess makes sense as that's still all amateur (right?). If this is what it takes to abandon that godawful idea to copy England's confusing league name structure, then I support it.

Adidas.com is selling some of the Women's World Cup jerseys in men's sizing so I wonder if Germany and some of the others just sold out instantly? Too bad.

The Red Sox said this transparently in their media push at the start of the City Connect program, and also brought in a bunch of people from Boston-area hip-hop to model the jerseys initially. It was basically like "this franchise has historically been racist so we're starting fresh with black people with this bright streetwear thing". Of course this happened at the same time the team roster let all of its black players go, and the Marathon itself is a tour of greater Boston's richest/whitest zip codes. But whatever. Navy on red has always been a favorite combo for me, which is maybe why I've always liked the Red Sox alts (though the pre-09 version was better). Black on red bores me, medium blues on red hurt my eyes, but navy works. Another thing that was telegraphed when Boston first unveiled them. They were supposed to only be Marathon Weekend, which was both a reasonable idea in one way and a terrible idea in another way, due to the endearingly organic tradition of the Boston Strong uniform that had popped up. At any rate, that "rule" went out the window either due to the merch sales or due to the players thinking the yellow jerseys were fire (as if this decade's anonymous, AAA bozos of the Red Sox deserve any say).

One ref making a mistake is fine, two is not. What is the point of VAR otherwise? This certainly cost New England a point in the standings, plus it was a total banger of a goal from Andrew Farrell of all people, which makes it doubly tragic.

I've always thought all-white works well for a Miami team, but may also be boring for a third (and putting Messi in all-white opens a new can of worms). I will instead regurgitate my idea that the Barca pre-match shirt from a few years ago would be a more perfect away kit for Miami than anything they've actually done so far (and now, more appropriate):

I can't complain too much because that Kings script solves a lot of other petty complaints. However, I think I'd like to see it with a different number font... not sure keeping the old one meshes well with the new script.

A niche design complaint: at some point maybe in the 00s, Adidas stopped making the official Marathon jackets in the classic colors of blue and yellow and started just changing them every year to whatever trendy color is in that season's Adidas color palette line. A brand-screwing before it was cool. Ironic that the baseball team's own brand-screwing picks up that torch. Any sort of "what is the big deal about Boston's marathon anyway" takes should be a bannable offence, IMO.

That NFL Quarterback Challenge looks pre-factory pomo to me, gives more of a late 80s vibe. Whatever you call the Janet Jackson "Control" album cover, that kind of thing.

I've always seen that as a crown/mountain cheeky hybrid, even though I know it's not meant to be. Would be a nice trick for one or both of the Utah soccer teams that play with monarch imagery.

That Guadeloupe set was a teamwear set last year... One of the sets, actually, where I sincerely thought that Canada could've taken a look in the catalog and ordered some quick before the World Cup and still looked good.