All-Purpose, Never-Ending Soccer Thread

And miss all that extra revenue from selling white and blue tee shirts, hats and jerseys!?!

That royal blue kit will be fugly. At least it is in my mind's eye.

 

Sam's Army, by and large, is a bunch of hacks. They took red years ago when the US wore that. Things have changed since.

Nike, who will probably be the US' kit supplier for quite some time, needs to come up with a solid color that they can go to Sam's Army with and say "Here it is. This is your color." Until that happens, Sam's Army is going to continue to say "Wear Red" while the team on the field wears something else.

 

I'll say it... the new jersey's not THAT bad. Frankly, it looks like it's missing a sponsor logo or something in the middle of the jersey, but it's not too bad. I'll be interested to see how it looks with digits on it and all that.

It's not the greatest, no, but it's still better than the trash we wore for the 94 WC (denim-styled jerseys, anyone?)

 

Ugly, ugly, ugly.

Glad I ponied up for one of those red limited edition ones before the world cup last year. Yes, the old-school uSA logo is not apatch, but oh well. These look like training shirts.

 

This just in:
George Steinbrenner has bought the US Soccer team.

 

Sam's Army fell asleep as the switch years ago, but red is still the default color among a number of the fans. But when I was at the game against the Czech Republic this summer, every last one of their fans was wearing red. We had people in all sorts of colors. Even among my group of 9 Idiots, we had 4 red, 3 white and 2 blue. We looked liked Recon in "Heartbreak Ridge" before Gunny Highway straightened them out. There needs to be some direction from someone so that our fans don't look so hopeless.

 

Zizzer, I am as well. It is warming on me. I will just wait until I see them on the field. And the denim one was HORRIBLE! Yuck. I did like the waving red and white though. That should have remained permanent.


Webster, I love that Sam's Army has a section. I love that fellow supporters can go and join in. However, they are more interested in selling and turning a profit these days than actually supporting.

Friends of mine had shirts made up with their logos and it had the Uncle Sam hat. Sam's Army figure heads jumped all over them claiming copyright infringement. It was not a cool situation. They weren't allowed in the section unless the shirts were turned inside out or taken off.

If Nike and US Soccer are going to stick with blue, Sam's Army cannot be stubborn.

 

Piss on Sam's Army. Any group trying to profit from something like this needs to be ignored.

It's similar to the situation when Art Modell moved the Ravens to Baltimore - their new stadium, he tried to create a section (the Bird Cage? Raven's Nest? Something like that) to re-create the passion the old Browns had with the Dawg Pound. Cleveland did the same with Browns Stadium, creating a section to revive the Pound, and it's gone over like a lead balloon.

Do people think the Black Hole in Oakland was a corporate-sponsored thing? Hell no, it's a bunch of rowdy fans who band together at the game and at the bars afterwards.

That kinda leads me into part of the larger issue at hand. I'm not a fan of the US playing games all over the country like a damn barnstorming team. Pick four or five sites and stick with them. I realize they're trying to build the game all over, but winning draws fans out more than anything else.

 

I was part of the us soccer supporters e-mail list on yahoo.com for a while. Not sure if it still exists, but it was just a bunch of dorks talking about chants and shirts. Some people's cup of tea, not mine.

Ditto Sam's Army. Always thought the name was cheese, always thought that if you make a big deal about this, there could at least be a bit more organization to it. But I prefer the idea of spontanaeity among U.S. fans, people who mingle at pre-game tailgates and share a love for a sport, not for a Web site that has the lyrics to "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life."

Is that a "soccer song" because it's English? Sort of like how people misuse "pitch" and "kit" because they're English sporting terms, NOT "soccer terms"?

 

Piotr, I think that there needs to be some semblance of assembly and organization to the supporters that go to games. The team on the field can feed off of it. If no one knows what the hell is going on and everyone just met that day, it turns into a "USA USA" type of chant for 90-minutes.

I have had a conversation with a friend of mine regarding this. He absolutely wants to create a great atmosphere just singing patriotic American songs at games. The downside is that the startup for something new may well be quashed by the likes of Sam's Army. It really is an awkward situation.

As the support of US Soccer increases more and more of these problems will persist.

 

And then, one day years and years from now, your buddy's new group can brawl with the Sam's Army before a match. It can be the first American hoolie event. ;D

 

Hells to the yeah!

It will be like a renewed civil war or some-such-shit.