GFB

I haven’t really been following the reception of the uniforms here, but while I like them and I think they’re definitely an upgrade from the previous set, it really does feel like Nike can’t help themselves from over-designing… or, they design everything with such an emphasis on the micro-level that they muddle-up the macro-level as a result.

@MJWalker45 @aawagner011 Exactly right... Even the previous uniforms were pretty fine in my eyes, but they're simply completely overpowered by the monstrosity that is the current helmet. I will say that the new throwback look has a certain "Rainbow Warriors" quality to them that appeals to the 90s kid in me.

Doesn't make it right. Spec work is still work.

I'm in favor of the Terps using the Maryland flag, but strongly opposed to the now former helmets. If you're going to use the flag, you have to use it as the lacrosse team does: as a graphic pattern more than an actual flag: It does not work when the pattern is split or too large and it looks like two different teams: And it does not work with an airbrush effect (which makes it look like a cheap motorcycle helmet owned by your least favorite neighbor):

This was intentional because at the time of the concept (2006ish), the Jaguar Car Company, who had threatened legal action over the original Jacksonville Jaguars logo, was a subsidiary of the Ford Motor Company, who famously owns the Detroit Lions.

The current shade of Honolulu blue isn't dark or deep enough to make this work. Memphis' royal blue is just barely dark enough to act as the dark shade, grey acts as the mid tone, and white is the highlight color... If the Lions were to try this with the current shade of Honolulu blue, they would run into the same issues that the Colorado Avalanche have after eliminating black. With that being said, I wouldn't be opposed to darkening the blue a shade or two to something a little closer to the 70s or 80s shade where it was more of a stock royal blue: for me, the 90s got a little too light and into the Carolina blue range for my liking:

Nah, if the Lions do go with a blue helmet, they'll keep the decal blue (or go with the helmet shell color) because the Lions' creative team is ok with that: If you want an off-the-board solution, I could see an oversized Boise State / Western Michigan-style one-color decal, more so than a grey/silver lion:

I'm preparing for a white helmet with chrome decals because there's no silver on the color rush uniforms (so a white helmet in a way matches the uniform better), but a blue or darker gray helmet would be better in general. In reality, this is a needless thing to do in the first place and I have zero faith in the Lions or Nike's creative teams to pull off an "interesting" direction well.

It feels a little pointless critiquing an XFL logo (because they are all bad), but the new Seattle logo looks so awkward with the negative space on the bottom of the “S” and the negative space filled in on the top half of the letterform. Regardless, Overwatch League did the same concept better:

I just realized that the nostril(?) of the skull is a spade

Maybe this should be it's own topic, but has anyone ever drawn a line connecting the Minnesota Wild and the Houston Texans? Because at the end of the day it's almost the exact same conversation and talking points on both sides: 1) Beloved team with unique local identity packs up and leaves town in the 90s. 2) Franchise keeps old identity around in bastardized form before eventually making changes. 3) New franchise returns to city with a silly name, but nice logo and colors. 4) Extended lack of success by the new franchise doesn't aid the efforts to cement new identity to fans. 5) Team starts to flirt with original franchise's colors to satiate local fans. I'd be curious if the relation of fans who want the Wild to return to the North Stars' green/gold and the Texans to bring back Luv Ya Blue is 1:1

hmmm

As someone with a fondness for weird local minor league teams, I have no interest in attending a single Panthers game. I call it the Jeff Fisher Effect.

I love the idea of a cherry blossom kit for DCU, but that’s too literal of a rendition for my taste.

Fair enough. It’s less that “the helmets are different” but more “it’s drawing more attention to each unique facemask instead of the helmet shell or design” but I don’t expect everyone’s brain to work the way that mine does… But that thought definitely explains why I’ve always hated Washington’s gold and New England’s red face masks.

I’ve realized that my preference is always for a facemask to be the least-gaudy color possible because it brings attention to the most non-uniform aspect of every helmet/uniform. When the Browns use their regular masks, my eye is drawn to the loudest object: the orange helmet shell… which generally is the most uniform aspect across all players/suppliers. But these white masks grab my attention first and foremost, which foremost underlines the individuality of each player and generally creates a less-uniform effect. A lineman’s mask with several bars crisscrossing over the entire face is going to have much more white visible than a kicker or a quarterback with only a few bars. All of the Ravens look like they’re generally wearing the same helmet from a distance, but you can see clearly that every Browns helmet is wildly different from the TV broadcast.

Stunning news. Grant was, by all accounts, a kind and brave human being and a fantastic writer. Condolences to his wife and family. FIFA is a gutless organization and won’t do anything meaningful. There needs to be a full investigation into Grant’s death by the US Government.

Forever the Benny Feilhaber era to me, long may he reign

Our young players are excellent at running directly at an opponent... on the dribble. We are an incredibly dribble-heavy team: Pulisic, Reyna, Musah, Dest, and even Weah all love to get on the ball and get around their defender to break lines. While some of these players do possess the ability to make a key pass, they usually do not play quickly, especially in concert with one another. Why? My guess is youth and a lack of chemistry more than any sort of attacking philosophy. Our young players all enjoy their time on the ball and in moments where they are unsure of what they are going to do after receiving a pass, they usually default to keeping the ball at their feet until they figure it out. If you look at the Pulisic goal vs Iran, you can see it's one of the rare times the US had a string of quick passes to unbalance the defense. Adams is dribbling the ball forward and finds Robinson (1 touch) who moves the ball back to Adams (2 touches) who quickly looks over his options and lays the ball off to McKennie (1 touch). This quick movement has unbalanced the Iranian defense and allowed Dest (1 touch) to make an open back post run and head the ball across for Pulisic (1 touch) who finishes the movement. This is a wonderful move and one of the best goals the US has scored in a long time... and I don't believe it's an accident that it didn't come from the run of play via Pulisic, Reyna, Dest, or Weah (or until the very end). Unfortunately, we don't have many natural combiners - players with an excellent first touch, who move off the ball and look to combine quick passes with their teammates. McKennie can when he has time and space, but his technical ability and touch lets him down in close quarters. Aaronson can do it in smaller spaces, but he also is somewhat dribble-oriented. Maybe LDLT if you're willing to take a step down in player quality. The moments when the US have had success attacking through the middle of the field (or Zone 14) -- such as the Weah goal vs Wales -- came when the US created a turnover, countered quickly into the space, and allowed Pulisic take 5 touches driving at the backline before slotting Weah in behind. But if you're going to try to attack through Z14 against a team sitting back in a defensive block, you're not going to have success through via extended dribbles. The ball just doesn't move fast enough to unbalance the defense. I don't believe that Berhalter insisted on playing the ball out wide or he has some rigid style of play that he is super-imposing on the national team. Sure, his teams like to activate the fullbacks in the attack, but with Jedi and Sergino on the roster it makes sense that you want to use their talents that way. If you look back at his Columbus teams, Berhalter always used a 4-2-3-1 (btw, a match where Gregg won the tactics battle against some guy named Jesse Marsh) and not a 4-3-3. The 4-3-3 allowed (A) for the US to use the fullbacks in attack (B) keep the strongest aspect of the team, the MMA midfield, intact and (C) allow our bevy of talented wingers lots of freedom to move around in the attack, yet somehow all of our best players were being played out of position? Some things are just up to the players, and that "never adjusting" that LVG mentioned speaks more to the decision making of the players than how the manager set up the team. They're the ones with the capacity to accelerate their speed of play, move off the ball, and start pinging it around... and I don't think it's a surprise that we ended going wide so often in that game when almost all of our attacking players play out on the wing for their clubs and love to dribble. Systematically, what really hurts the Berhalter style of play is the lack of a striker. The immense production that Kamara and Zardes created under GGG in Columbus was the result of numerous simple finishes they found around the box and were able to capitalize on. Unfortunately, the US was never able to find that between Ferrera, Sargent, Pepe, Pefok, Gioacchini, Wright, Dike, or Hoppe and Weah/Reyna weren't healthy enough through the run of qualifying or summer tournaments to experiment with them centrally. Have you forgotten the state of the program post-Couva? The men's team being treated as a complete joke, failing to qualify for the World Cup in the weakest region, an entire generation of players lost, toxic leadership culture throughout the program on the field and off? Yet despite all that Berhalter was able to return us to our historic water level with the youngest and least experienced team we've ever sent. That alone makes his tenure a rousing success. And for me, as someone who hates El Tri, their dominance over us was annoying and Gregg helped win a lot of those trophies with much less talent and experience on the field. It's also funny to me that you're holding up Jurgen Klinsmann as a tactical genius of a manager and dissing on Tata, which is an opinion that I think you would be wise to reconsider. Ultimately, regardless of what certain media outlets have tabbed this group of players, this is not a golden generation for the United States. There's no Modric, no De Bruyne, no Pirlo... Sure, we now have young players who belong at the top clubs in the world, but almost every country ranked in the top 20 has those. With a healthy academy infrastructure now in place across most of the country with both MLS and USL academies and European clubs setting up shop as well, getting that replenishing foundation of top players should be the beginning of competing on the world stage, not the culmination of all those efforts. It's going to take time (and I'm talking decades, not years) for the US to become a Brazil/France/Spain/England/Germany level soccer power; and the only way that timeline will be sped up is the off-chance we are gifted an actual Ballon d'Or level of player by the football gods. But even then, there are no guarantees in football (see Robert Lewandowski and Poland, Zlatan Ibrahimović and Sweden, or Erling Halaand and Norway).

@Rockstar Matt I think you’re spot on with most of your takeaways. You’re right in that the US made three really basic mistakes that would get any high school team reamed-out by their coach. Although, I don’t think those mistakes were necessarily due to being out of position in transition…. because they were in physical position to make the play and cut out the danger for each Netherlands goal, but it felt like the physical fatigue of the squad led to mental fatigue in those moments and the Dutch were ruthless and efficient in capitalizing on those lapses. However, I disagree with your assessment that the US was out-managed or need to change their system. Full marks to LVG for setting up his team the right way and sitting off the ball (which we saw the US struggle against all qualifying and in the Japan/KSA friendlies), but there’s not much you can do when your opponent makes it very clear they want you to possess the ball. And if you’re going to break down a team sitting in a defensive block, you have two ways to break them down: you can either go right at them with speed and skill by stringing together 2-3 consecutive moments of brilliance that unlocks the defense, or you can try to go around the block entirely by sending in crosses or taking shots from distance. Unfortunately, the latter wasn’t an option due to the height of the Dutch goalie/defense and the attacking options for the US… and the former approach was hindered by injuries, fatigue, and a lack of depth. Putting myself in his shoes as manager, I’m not sure what Gregg could have done differently in how he set up the team for this game. It’s clear that Reyna was struggling with form and/or fitness and wasn’t available to play a full 90, Sargent’s injury left the striker options ghastly thin (I’d have traded my kingdom for a healthy Brandon Vasquez), and you noted that the world-class talent of this team is only 7-8 players deep. While, like you, I have my quibbles with the back-end of the roster or the subs that GGG leaned on, I don’t believe that Pefok or Pepe or Scally or whichever “I would have taken this player over Christian Roldan” makes much of a difference against elite players like Virgil van Dijk, Memphis, Frenkie de Jong, etc… While I am disappointed with the result, I think the backlash against Berhalter is far too harsh and critical for a team that pretty much reached the heights they deserved. They got out of a decently tough group with 5 points, didn’t concede from open play, and the players were in position to make the necessary offensive/defensive plays to advance in the knockouts… it’s hard to ask for much more at this stage. And that’s not taking into account the successes in Concacaf/Gold Cup/Nations League and the struggles of other Concacaf teams in Qatar. Although I’m personally not in favor of Berhalter returning (eight years under one voice is too long, fresh perspectives and new ideas are needed), I think Gregg did a great job in all the important big-picture areas: re-establishing a healthy culture, acquiring and developing young talent, and winning games/trophies and he deserves a lot more credit/respect than the scorn a lot of US fans are giving him.

The gloves match the bear on the chest.

Denmark #2 (by MDGP) France #2 (by gswansea) Australia #1 (by GriffinM6) Argentina #1 (by FlyingLamprey) Excellent work by everyone who entered!

I think this is really classy and the best the Twins have ever looked. The home uniforms give me old school candy shop vibes, which is a really nice vibe for a team like Minnesota. My only sticking point is that I don’t really understand the idea behind the cream/navy only alternate… while the Twin Cities wordmark is a beaut, it’s a bit lifeless compared to the other uniforms.

I'll be in the minority and say that the Broncos classic "D" logo is bad and the current bronco is far superior for a couple of reasons: 1) The current bronco has that "Flying Elvis" aspect to it where it just looks better on a football helmet. Unlike the classic logo, the current logo is actually somewhat legible from the broadcast view on TV... plus, there's this effect that happens when the team lines up just before the snap and the helmets create this "stampede" effect that I think is really cool: 2) You avoid the Ravens problem the classic "D" logo presents when you have an illustration and a letter intertwined... either you need a secondary/subpar version of the logo to place on the other side of the helmet or you live with the bronco facing the "backwards." I know the current trendy idea is to combine the two eras into singular one logo, but every effort I've seen looks strange and off-putting and ultimately just waters-down the current logo and what it does well.