Houston Dynamo kits unveiled

[Gothamite]

ok, so far we have:

There there is this

This comes from the MLS pdf game guide.  Now, it could easily be wrong (after all, this doesn't include Buddle in the starting lineup), but it'll be interesting to see.

and:

not to jump off topic, but does anyone know when Red Bull New York will be showing thier new kit (probably the same as RB Salzburg -¿spelling?- but im curious)

Someone on bigsoccer.com found this on mlsgear.com:

It could just be a training jersey. Hard to tell.

That has to be the shirt they are running with for games. It's the new Squadra II jersey that is similar to what St. Etienne wear in Lique 1 (France)

Rumor has been white at home, red on the road. Both images could be accurate.

[harperdc]

I've heard the term "change kit" used as a synonym for "alternate" or "second" jersey, FWIW. And yes, MLS needs to re-align itself with the rest of the soccer world on a couple of matters: having sponsors on the chest (where they belong, also ridding itself of the stupid redundancy) and being more "primary, second, alternate" as opposed to "home and away" for their jerseys.

and am I the only one who thinks its kinda funny that yesterday was opening day for MLS and we *still* don't know what every team's kits are going to look like?

[walkerws]

The put that out awhile ago. Maybe two months. Houston's name change kinda muffed it all up.

[KeeperEUSC]

15 minutes until kickoff, hopefully someone can snap a screenshot during the game broadcast on MLSnet. I'll try to do it myself, but I ended up losing the KC-Crew broadcast last night.

[Sodboy13]

Yep, Red Bulls wearing the basic white adidas top, with the white stripes down the sleeves, and red numbers. The red shorts have a striping pattern that matches the above red jersey, so I think we can count that as confirmed. I'm digging the keeper's grey jersey. And Tony Meola is still playing?

On a side note, DC United's kits don't look nearly as bad or as squished on the field.

[Brian in Boston]

Yep, Red Bulls wearing the basic white adidas top, with the white stripes down the sleeves, and red numbers.

Which begs the question, why doesn't every team in Major League Soccer wear uniforms that feature numbers and player names emblazoned in team colors? Why must teams like FC Dallas or the New England Revolution, which don't feature Black as part of their official color palette, have Black numbers and player names on their kits? Why don't they have Red or Blue numbers instead?

It's absolutely assenine, given that Chivas USA has sported Gold numbers on one of their uniforms and Red Bull New York now features Red numbers on one of their kits.

[KeeperEUSC]

For those who missed:

[-kj]

It's absolutely assenine, given that Chivas USA has sported Gold numbers on one of their uniforms and Red Bull New York now features Red numbers on one of their kits.

Supposedly, all MLS teams were supposed to use only black or white numbers. I don't know why Chivas got a waiver for their gold numbers, but that seems to have broken the trend. (The gold numbers look good, but the way they've done the names this year looks absolutely horrible.)

Since this topic has gotten into MLS jersey issues in general, here's my gripe from having watched at least pieces of all six games this weekend.

MLS is running a new campaign this year with the tagline "Embrace the Colors." So, if we're supposed to embrace the colors, WHY DON'T THE TEAMS WEAR THEM?!

The whole thing with all the teams having white road jerseys (except for Columbus and Dallas) has always bugged me. Not only does it cause clashes with a couple of teams' home kits (Dallas, Chivas), making some of the games difficult to watch on TV, but now we get an ad campaign about embracing the colors of MLS, while the teams don't generally wear them anyway!

(Before anyone accuses me of being a Eurosnob or something, remember that not only do I support a USL team, of all things, but I purposedly watched pieces of all six games this weekend. I like MLS. It's just that the league infuriates me at times as well.)

My personal jersey-related wrap of the games this weekend:

1. Dallas v Chicago - Dallas wears red and white hoops (well, they were hoops, until they were chopped up a bit this year) at home. Chicago wears red at home, and as MLS prefers, white on the road. Watching Dallas in their hoops and Chicago in white with some red trim made this a very difficult game for me to watch. Obviously Chicago's red kits would have been just as bad. But... Chicago also has (well, supposedly--we haven't seen this year's version of it yet) a third kit, which is light blue! Obviously, the Fire wearing their blue would have been the perfect solution.

2. Kansas City v Columbus - KC in their home blue, Columbus in their yellows. Perfect contrast. Lots of color. BRILLIANT!

3. Los Angeles v New England - Remember MLS Cup 2005? Remember how good it looked with LA in their gold with green shorts and New England in their blue? So why the hell was New England wearing their white kits? Oh, right, this is MLS. YAWN. (A side note: The New England white shirts didn't look that bad, really. If they went primary white, that'd be kindof cool, though then I wouldn't be able to complain about them wearing white on the road.)

4. DC v New York - DC in their usual home all-black, New York in white shirts with red shorts. Rumour has it that New York's home shirts are red, so it would have been better to see those--but, they could also be saving those to debut at home next week, so I can forgive them if that's the case. And at least they didn't wear all-white.

5. Chivas v Salt Lake - Oy. Chivas in their red/white stripes with blue shorts, the usual. Real would be in their road whites, right? WRONG! But while this would normally be a good thing, it wasn't. Real was in their home red, which has a decent amount of purple trim... and purple shorts. I'm sure in person it wasn't bad, but on TV, the teams were again nearly indistinguishable. Even if Real had worn their white shorts with the red tops, it may have been a bit better, though still not great. This is where a great argument could be made about teams not just having all-white kits for the road.

6. Houston v Colorado - Houston's new kit is an orange shirt with white shorts. A little plain--it could definitely use some of that light blue as trim--but not bad. Colorado decided to wear the blue and black kits that they normally wear at home. Again, lots of colour, terrific contrast... BRILLIANT!

So, in summary, there were two predictable color v white games, two absolutely horrible games to try and watch on TV from a color standpoint, and two games that were terrific in terms of kit choice.

[Brian in Boston]

A bit off-topic: How in the world is anyone going to beat Houston this year, given that their roster apparently features a defender who sports a mutant healing factor and adamantium claws?

[Brian in Boston]

Supposedly, all MLS teams were supposed to use only black or white numbers.

Why? It's a horrible aesthetic choice and has been since day one.

There is absolutely no reason that the uniforms of Major League Soccer teams shouldn't feature numbers and player names rendered in a color that exists in each team's color palette. Aesthetically, it would be a much better choice.

Further, there is absolutely no way - in this day and age - that numbers and letters in team colors can't be manufactured and supplied to MLS at a reasonable cost. I mention the latter because I have heard it bandied about that MLS officials have actually used cost and supply issues as the reasoning behind the black-and-white number edict. That is a complete and utter fallacy. I have a close personal friend who has worked in the sporting goods and licensed product industry for over 25 years. He assures me that high quality numbers and letters can be manufactured for a reasonable price in a full assortment of colors.

The myriad ways in which MLS botches even the simplest aspects of marketing and merchandising issues never ceases to boggle my mind.

[slapshot]

Is this perhaps just another influence of the "Euro-ization" of the MLS? Most pictures and footage of teams in the Premiership have teams sporting black or white numerals and names.

[Gothamite]

Before anyone accuses me of being a Eurosnob

It's really time to retire this insult.

"Eurosnob" is an epithet leveled at anyone who says "Hey, since American soccer leagues keep going belly-up, maybe we should actually take a look at what the rest of the world has been so successful with...."

[-kj]

Is this perhaps just another influence of the "Euro-ization" of the MLS? Most pictures and footage of teams in the Premiership have teams sporting black or white numerals and names.

West Brom (red), Blackburn (red), Arsenal (gold) and Newcastle (gold, used to be blue) are the only teams I can think of in the Prem that don't use black or white numbers/names on their primary jerseys, and in Arsenal's case it's likely a one-year choice.

[gordie_delini]

Is this perhaps just another influence of the "Euro-ization" of the MLS? Most pictures and footage of teams in the Premiership have teams sporting black or white numerals and names.

West Brom (red), Blackburn (red), Arsenal (gold) and Newcastle (gold, used to be blue) are the only teams I can think of in the Prem that don't use black or white numbers/names on their primary jerseys, and in Arsenal's case it's likely a one-year choice.

mockba is correct with his assessment (sp?) of the FAPL's number colorings - and yes, Arsenal's gold numers are ONLY for the commemorative final season at Highbury shirts.

[harperdc]

some teams use different colors on Euro shirts - Man U have used red on their white alternates before (and even gold numbers on blue IIRC) and Chelsea and Liverpool both used gold on their home kits in Europe this year, but besides those I can't think of anyone else.

and in the two leagues that share the same number font set as MLS - France and Scotland (though I'm sure there's more) - I'm struggling to think of teams besides PSG who use different colors.

white or black just work well and contrast with most anything (well, unless you're Boro and insist on using black numbers on red shirts )

[jr79]

I'm sure I've seen other teams wear yellow numbers on blue shirts in the EPL in the past. Was it Wimbledon before they went down?

The thing is that most away kits bear little resemblance to home kit colours so black/white numbers are no problem... and if your home kit is white then black numbers make some sense, and if its a dark colour then white numbers are the obvious choice.

[jr79]

white or black just work well and contrast with most anything (well, unless you're Boro and insist on using black numbers on red shirts )

As if Boro weren't bad enough to watch to begin with... those black on red numbers...

[gordie_delini]

in the SPL, Celtic uses yellow numbers on its away kit for this season, other than that, I don't know who else uses different colored names/numbers in the leagues with fonts matching MLS