It’s baaaaaack…
For the third year in a row, Major League Soccer will be running “Jersey Week”, where every club will unveil at least one new kit for the 2015 season. It’s to this journalism major/marketing minor what Shark Week is for Discovery Channel enthusiasts.
Jersey Week officially runs from February 28 to March 7, but just like last season, a few clubs have jumped the gun. So for part one of my Jersey Week 2015 review series, I’ll assign a letter grade for each kit released in advance of Jersey Week.
For a complete Jersey Week schedule, go to MLSsoccer.com. Be sure to watch this space though, as I’ll be doing a second, third, and fourth kit recap in the coming days!
For today, kits are organized in alphabetical order by team name. Home kits come first for teams that released multiple new kits.
Kit #1: Columbus Crew SC Home
Despite the offseason rebrand, I had expected that the Crew would just throw their new logo onto their 2014 home kit, seeing as it had only had one season of use.
But a new kit came instead, and it’s not a bad one at that. All that really changed from the 2014 home kit is that the faint diamond pattern got rotated 45 degrees and became even fainter, the club and league logos got updated, and the black accents shifted lower down on the sleeves.
But it’s definitely a winner. It’s clean, sharp, and simple, and like the new logo speaks a lot more to the city of Columbus than three dudes with half-shadowed faces in hard hats (R.I.P.).
Grade: A-
Kit #2: Columbus Crew SC Away
It’ll take a royal effort to knock Seattle off their “our kits are so eye-popping they can be seen from Mars” perch, but the new Crew away kit comes pretty close. Which is all the more impressive when you consider they didn’t take from the colour palette of Saturday Night Fever.
This kit is even sharper than their home kit. The checkerboard pattern and the yellow accents pop out just enough to be eye-catching but without making the kit look busy.
The Crew have done a bunch of black away kits in their history, and all of the ones that I’ve seen have looked wonderful. This one might be the best of them though.
Grade: A+
Kit #3: D.C. United Away
The old United away kits were pretty tacky in my opinion. These ones are far from it.
Gradients can look either really cool or really bad when put on a soccer kit, so I think it was smart for D.C. to go for the safer pseudo-gradient line pattern. That being said, doing that sort of pattern right behind a sponsor’s logo can create a sight for sore eyes.
Having a wordmark sponsor logo like Leidos only amplifies the effect. It’s legible, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not that pleasant.
As for the crest, United decided to go grayscale, which was an interesting move, but one that I’m neither here nor there about. They also decided to go lenticular (a fancy league term for adding a 3D hologram-like effect in the background of the crest), which as much as I’ve had a track record for disliking, looks good on this kit.
A pretty good modern look for a side finally heading ditching RFK Stadium and heading into MLS’ modern era.
Grade: B
Kit #4: New York City FC Home
Oops, sorry! That’s Manchester City’s 2013-2014 home kit there. Here’s NYCFC’s 2015 home kit.
Now can you see why I made that mistake?
To be fair, this was always going to happen. Looking back on it, this kit launch was sandwiched right in the middle of the “We’re playing at Yankee Stadium until who knows when!” and “Psych! Frank Lampard hasn’t signed with us yet!” announcements.
But hey, that jock tag looks nice at least!
This thing gets an F in principle and a C in practice. Put those two together and…
Grade: D
Kit #5: New York City FC Away
Stop what you’re doing and get something to drink. Then get away from any innocent bystanders, because you’re about to do the biggest spit-take you’ve done since Jermain Defoe signed for Toronto FC.
New York City FC did something right.
Now, their cause is helped by the fact that orange is my favourite colour. It’s also helped by the fact that black kits are notorious for being hard to screw up.
But both the sky blue and orange accents look excellent. And those five diagonal stripes to honour the five boroughs? Genius.
Surely the design process for this kit was outsourced.
Grade: A-
Kit #6: Orlando City SC Home
Purple is making a big entrance into Major League Soccer.
Despite those crazy kit designs of the early years, MLS has never seen a team wear purple before the newcomers from Florida.
Knowing that just plain purple wouldn’t be enough, OCSC added a subtle (and shiny) horizontal stripe pattern across the front of the shirt. The Orlando Health sponsor logo works beautifully with the shirt as well. It might have been nice to see just a little more gold trim, but that isn’t the colour they’re trying to paint the city, so I’ll let that slide.
Had they gone out and acquired either Dom Dwyer or Lamar Neagle, I would have bought this instantly. I’m still considering it.
Grade: A
Kit #7: Toronto FC Home
Here’s an imaginary everyday fan’s summary of the evolution of Toronto FC’s four previous home kits:
2007-2008: Nice solid red, I like the white and grey trim!
2009-2010: Hey! A maple leaf! Go Canada!
2011-2012: A bigger maple leaf? Awesome!
2013-2014: WE SEE THE LEAF. WILL YOU BE MAKING THE NEXT HOME KIT OUT OF REAL LEAVES?!?!
But for 2015, the leaf has been relegated to the jock tag, and in its place went, well, nothing. At least, nothing until BMO decided to go back on their earlier statements and re-sign for another year as kit sponsor.
An average kit in my opinion.
Grade: B
Kit #8: Vancouver Whitecaps Home
Vancouver’s done away with the pinstripes and gone with a completely new look for their 2015 home kit.
The cascading mountain gradient looks stellar. Every shade of blue used works well, and the gradient doesn’t interfere with the Bell wordmark on the chest. And that navy blue trim is looking great as always.
Nice work Whitecaps. Hopefully this kit will inspire your forwards to start scoring some more.
Grade: A
And with that, the early kit releases are in the books. Again, be sure to look out for all of my Jersey Week 2015 reviews in the coming days.
Main Photo: MLSsoccer.com
