Digby

Getting into the sporting act, too. Certainly one way to warm up. As an aside -- what are these panels of faux-snow they have covering the entire field for these things? It's been 50 degrees in Boston for a week and I'm not sure we've had any snow at all this season.

MLS did “shootouts” in the 90s in the style of hockey penalties, with the player running in alone on goal from 40 yards out or something like that. Obviously there’s much more to that than firing off the one shot from the designated spot. Unpopular to admit that any of MLS’s early-days experiments with Americanizing soccer were smart but that was an improvement on traditional penalties.

Ah yes, Johnny Cash, such an important figure in the history of Nashville soccer

It’s entirely a political move. Wanna be in the club where everyone hates you or the club where everyone (has been bribed to be) your friend?

As obviously bad as those outfield kits were, the keeper kits from that era had colorways in purple or light gray that could only be described as hospital scrubs. Big yikes!

Why wouldn't they? No different than having five teams in the Acela Corridor. Sacramento to San Diego is further away than Foxboro to DC.

I'd have guessed it was a take on Hornets purple without being a total ripoff. Which would be a pretty reasonable thing for them to do and it looks cool on its own. But seeing the Ally Bank Nascar, yeah, now I can't unsee that. A very convenient synergy.

Unfortunately takes me back to the 2002 MLS Cup, and this photo.

Do people call it that? Sure, what the heck. "Archers" would be a cool and distinctive mascot if, heaven forbid, a new MLS team used an American-style nickname. But I know it's not that kind of arch, and affluent yuppie millennials associate the word with the cartoon and not the bow-and-arrow thing.

Okay, some other name that's not Athletic that starts with an A. Point being that STLCSC's logo is really nice, but also, it's an A.

Woulda been one slick piece of design if the team was called Athletic St Louis.

it also feels like the wrong piece of the team name to highlight. Though, easy mistake to make when your acronym is so many letters. making that piece STL would be better I think.

Also just steel yourselves for white jerseys for the away teams for all the Christmas games. Except for the last game of the day, once you’ve got used to it all.

There was that one year two years ago where the jerseys were literally Pacers fauxbacks instead of anything from the league brand, but that scheme didn’t keep. So who knows. I’m still on the team for the black/white minimalist team logo jerseys.

I hope that’s true, been impressed by San Diego’s showing in NWSL and the stadium looks nice, even though it’s a college stadium. San Diego has always felt like a more logical market than LV ever did. Only thing is that I must break from my usual position and, this time, insist that the team change their name upon “promotion.” San Diego Loyal is as dumb as anything we had in 1996.

The Revolution kit that leaked bizarrely early months ago appears like it'll have navy armpit panels on an otherwise white-with-red shirt, so I'd expect plenty more.

New England has basically used the bunting-R only everywhere they can -- social graphics, merchandise, the big sign on their training facility in Foxboro. I think it was in the Athletic where I read an article about the rebrand where a club exec basically said that they only used the full version, with the white roundel and full club name, on the jerseys because the league made them. If LAFC are only using the partial logo now, then either the league changed the rules or not everyone in the league is on the same page. Either explanation is highly plausible, tbh.

Alternatively it could *worse* in the normal photos. Yeesh. Would be decent in a more khaki color I think but that is such a bizarrely specific shade of green, and not a pleasant one. Though I do admire the LAFC commitment to getting weird with the aways, maybe not like that. It's a visual illustration of an old ranch house ruined by 30 years of smoking indoors. I'm already sick of Miami having these basic, boring black away kits. They could take a lot more risks, starting with making that fun trippy pattern all-over instead of just confined to stripes, and I'm already ready for them to try a different color. Might be worth getting one before that crypto firm goes bust and the shirt becomes a collectors item.

Man, some of you all are quick to judge. I can barely judge what color that LAFC kit is or how the pattern would look in the course of normal wear.

This has bee my hobby-horse for years, as well, and LAFC is a perfect candidate for it.

I agree, and I think that's more an issue with whomever makes these kit matchup decisions at the league level. Or is it up to clubs? I'm curious. But yeah, the point is that teams in MLS seem too quick to switch to their away kit, which honestly wouldn't bother me too much if the away kits weren't almost always mono-white or mono-black with very little to distinguish teams.

On the playoffs thing, I also recall that one of the MLS execs' own criticisms of the two-leg format was that a team could lose the 2nd leg but still go through on goal differential if they won by a lot the first leg. But now they're going for a group stage where a team could fully rest their first-choice XI on the last game if earlier ones went well for them, and advance anyway. This does solve for two of my complaints about the current format -- fluky one-and-done losses, and lower-seeded teams getting zero home games. However... It's both the constant tinkering AND the always-moving goalposts that make MLS difficult to take seriously, even when the soccer's fun to watch.

Lucky rich people getting luckier and willfully mismanaging things to great financial returns is the American way. At least it looks that way based on 2 out of every 3 Zillow listings within a hundred miles of me.

Dammit, should have guessed. Will practice my eyerolling before the official jersey release.

I kind of like the idea in the abstract but feels like it would swing the pendulum back to making the playoffs way too long. Also with Leagues Cup that makes TWO extra mini-leagues on top of the regular season. How much MLS are we all clamoring for, anyway?