MLS Uniform Reviews - 2008 season

The Chicago Fire sport perhaps the most ubiquitous color combo of soccer: red and white. It works fine. The home kit is nice. The big white stripe across the middle seems a bit strange, but then we get to see the dull Best Buy store logo slapped across the chest. The away kit just reverses the red and white and keeps the same insipid sponsor logo. The team crest is not half bad…it’s just ripped off from their inspiration. You can’t miss with a Maltese cross I guess.

The Kansas City Wizards. A host of cliché-ridden jokes come to mind about their name, but what about their home uniform? Yuck. Royal blue with some navy blue on the sleeves, the adidas stripes on the shoulders and a little yellow piping. The phrase “a face only a mother could love” comes to mind. Inoffensive yes, but at some point abject dullness becomes somewhat offensive. I like the away whites a little bit more. Why? I’m not sure. It looks kind of ‘meaner’ to me or something.

The Columbus Crew… I’m a sucker for non-traditional colors, but this does not really apply to the screaming canary yellow of the Crew’s home kits. Nice to see their paint company sponsor, Glidden, is involved in bright colorful things. It makes a certain amount of sense right? The away kits are pretty cool. There are a number of cool yellow and black teams. I like Turkish powerhouse Fenerbahce, and Bolivian team The Strongest. Black and yellow is probably my favorite color combo--maybe because I like bees. There are plenty of other black and yellow clubs, but I’ll try and stay on topic. I have to say that the team crest/logo for the crew is LAME. Why would anyone want three worker dudes with hard hats on a team shield? I will avoid the easy sophomoric homoerotic jokes and just say: dumb logo.

I have mixed feelings about the New England Revolution’s kit. The home uniforms are inoffensive, and go together well. Don’t like the font they use, and the logo is dull. The away kits are way worse. They looks like amusement park staff uniforms or something. Come on. They should have uniforms that incorporate nice fall foliage colors or something.

Toronto FC. All hail our Canadian brothers getting in on the MLS action. I like the red, on the home unis, and the gray & dark gray highlights make it that much snappier. I like the away kits even better. Gray and red with white just makes everything look nice. I pretty much like the team logo. It all goes together quite nicely. They are sponsored by the Bank of Montreal. Good for them. I hope their jersey sponsorship does not get caught up in the mortgage crisis—darn. Too late.

How easy is it to pile on the New York Red Bulls? I never liked their uniforms all that much when they were the Metro Stars, they just looked like ugly copies of AC Milan. I have never liked the Red Bull energy drink either (invented in Thailand, perfected in Austria?!? Weird). When you combine a perennially under-performing team with a syrupy-sweet energy drink the results are magic! I know that as an American, used to the clutter free uniforms of basketball, American football and baseball I am supposed to be bothered by massive logo creeps and sponsorships—but I’m not. Who cares? Sponsor logos only bug me when they look really stupid. Such is the case with our sponsor’s logo on the home kit. White with some red, and dull as hell. Maybe it looks better after one quaffs the delicious mixed berry flavor of Red Bull energy drink. Pfft. The away kit is slightly better and more intimidating because it is darker and not quite as boring and ugly as the home kit. If somehow the Red Bulls were bought out by Seven Up and became the New York Seven Ups I’d probably love the kit. Somebody get working on this!

D.C. United is my home team. 2008 marks an historical event: the removal of the three stripes across the chest. DC United has had Adidas kits from the beginning. Our black and white with red color scheme with a big eagle does remind me, somewhat eerily of a sad chapter of German history, but thankfully the uniforms and team crest have managed to steer clear of any of that(!) Anyways, United has always had the three stripes of Adidas right across their chests to the point where it was less about Adidas and more about DC United! It was the teams’ special look, and it really looked good (most of the time). This year the uniform had nothing across the chest, and now we find out why. Check out our new home and away jerseys. I wish I was excited about DC United’s newest corporate sponsor, but I am not.

Kit Aesthetics is a column by Chris Ketcham about football kits - the good, the bad and the (very) ugly.