Having kicked off earlier this month, the MLS is now into its 24th season of play. Coincidentally, the league is now also contested by 24 different teams, what with FC Cincinnati being the latest expansion franchise to join the fold. To celebrate these milestones, we here at Club 25 are quite pleased to offer you something special this week; our definitive ranking of the 24 ‘Primary’ jerseys that will be gracing North America’s premiere league competition in 2019;

(Since this article went live we’ve returned to do the 2020 season shirts in a new ranking as well)

To preface our rankings, we will only be judging Primary shirts (Primary being the North American equivalent of what Europeans would call home) based on the following criteria;

Respect for tradition, heritage, and club colours

Strength of design

Detailing

Sponsors and the way they are integrated

Congruency between front, back, and sleeves

Interestingly, only one team from the MLS has featured on the site previously, which has not so much to do with our interest in the league as it does with the fact that its clubs have been subjected to a disgusting exclusivity contract with adidas, originally signed in 2004 and recently extended until 2023. A staple of American sports leagues, a contract of this type ensures that all teams must be outfitted by one and the same brand, effectively creating a monopoly. Although there are some positive effects to this, such as the ability to run a centralized merchandise business (the online MLS store) and guaranteed equal income for all clubs, there are serious downsides to signing over all 24 teams to one and the same supplier.

For one, adidas does not have to compete with other big players like Nike, Puma, and Under Armour, which means that a great degree of laziness can be afforded by the Germans; indeed, we’ve seen this last year with all goalies wearing the same design whilst some clubs receive hand-me-downs from bigger foreign teams (you’ll see this called out in our ranking).

What is most frustrating, however, is that adidas is very happy to fleece customers with ‘replica’ and ‘authentic’ versions of shirts; simply put, if you want the exact same jersey that players wear, expect to shell out about a 120 USD. Alternatively, you can get a replica that is of even poorer quality (we are not big fans adidas’ manufacturing standards) for a cool 90 USD, at the cost of pretty much everything. Heat transfers, fit, material, even notable details such as collars and sleeve cuffs can end up being completely different on a replica shirt as compared to the authentic offering.

As seen with this official advert for the New York Red Bulls jersey, the 30 USD downgrade from Authentic to Replica nets you different sleeve cuffs, a half-baked collar, ‘relaxed fit’ (which is essentially a euphemism for ‘we couldn’t be arsed, sorry’), and embroidery rather than heat-sealing.

The impudence of this is stunning, and very much common throughout the United States; Nike gets to pull this trick in the NFL and NBA thanks to its exclusivity contracts with those leagues, whilst adidas gets to milk hockey fans with their NHL-contract. This form of tasteless exploitation is less common in the rest of the world, where the big brands are often content to have their lower profile teams wear replica-grade shirts (such as the Northampton Town and Cambridge United ‘Poppy’ shirts we covered recently) and cannot rely on monopolies to sustain these disgusting business practises. It’s only the fans of big teams who suffer (most ‘big’ clubs in Europea wear one of the three big brands), whilst smaller clubs enjoy the benefits of wearing kit made by brands like Erreà, hummel, and FBT, who are all quite happy to only offer authentic shirts (sold at replica prices).

Alas, with our objections to the business model of adidas and the MLS out of the way, it is best we kick off this big ol’ ranking bonanza, no? All photographs are taken from the clubs’ official stores, and show the authentic versions of shirts. We really wish we didn’t have to make this distinction, but such is life when dealing with adidas. We’ll start with the worst Primary shirt in the league, and end with what we consider the very best kit. If you vehemently disagree with any of our picks, be sure to let us know on Twitter!

24. Philadelphia Union

We start off the ranking with an absolute shambles that is now into its second season of use, which has done little to convince us this is anything but the single worst top on show this year. Having joined the MLS in 2010, Philadelphia Union is celebrating its tenth anniversary with a kit that has binned much of what made Union jerseys some of the best in the league.

Having worn stunning combinations of dark navy and natural khaki prior to 2018, as evidenced by their kit history, Union opted (or were forced) to wear a plain affair with two shades of navy rather than continue their love affair with their customary shade of brown. This has resulted in a jersey that can really only be described as a knock-off Los Angeles FC kit, or a particularly dicey East-Asian reproduction of a DC United top made by a designer who never saw the original.

Good ol’ Union Khaki does return as minimal trim and in the trademark adidas spaghetti, which is sadly on the shoulders rather than below the armpits, but it’s just not enough to save the entire thing. For 2019, sponsors Bimbo have agreed to drain the colour out of their logo on the chest (this is not reflected in the shirts sold in the online store), which would have been a welcome change were it not for the fact that this just makes the jersey look even less like a Union kit. The well-known snake on the front and the ‘Join or Die’ tag on the back of the collar, while pleasing, are equally unable to salvage anything from this utter trainwreck; light blue, the colour of the city of Philadelphia, which featured on recent shirts, is also conspicuously absent.

23. Toronto FC

If adidas can’t be bothered designing something, why should we be bothered typing out a comment?

It’s a plain red top, with the only details of note being the CN Tower superimposed on a maple leaf acting as a jock tag, and ‘All For One’ written on the back of the collar. That will be 120 USD, bitte schön.

22. New York Red Bulls

adidas kept most of their more gimmicky ideas reserved for the away shirts this season, almost all of which use a white base. The Red Bulls, unfortunate enough to use white at home, are one of the few exceptions to this rule and have thus become the recipient of what adidas calls the ‘Glitch kit’.

Sporting a grey base made out of fine diagonal stripes that is very unlike the usual livery for Red Bull teams (white, minimal fuss), this new jersey suffers from the plain sleeves not meshing well with the torso and the very cheap effect thrown in. The words ‘Love’, ‘Fight’, ‘Passion’, and ‘Glory’ are embossed on the lower half, with their rendering attempting to mimick the glitching you’d find on a particularly bad computer. Unfortunately for the designers, this doesn’t work at all; you can’t just drape a couple of buzzwords in a big tacky font on the shirt and call it a day like this.

Our tip to improve the Glitch kit? Replace the buzzwords with ‘Fizzy’, ‘Wings’, ‘Hyper-aggressive marketing tactics’, and ‘Type 2 Diabetes’ for a metaphysical so-bad-its-good effect. Also, remove the ‘New York’ ‘Red Bulls’ in two fonts from the back; there are plenty of teams in the league this season that look indiscernible from one another when seen from the back, but the Red Bulls are not among them – plastering their name for the sake of recognizability is hence really unnecessary, as well as a not-so-subtle way of sneaking in an extra outing for the club’s owners/sponsors.

21. Orlando City SC

Remember us calling adidas lazy in the intro? This is perhaps the single most poignant piece of evidence corroborating that claim, seeing as the pattern on the front is lifted from Spain’s 2018 World Cup away shirt. Did they think no one would notice this? adidas calls this the ‘Bring The Noise’ jersey, but it only gets boos and hisses from us. Not exactly perfect for the kit that will mark Orlando’s fifth season of play in the MLS, who were the first Florida-based team to enter the MLS following the demise of the Tampa Bay Mutiny and Miami Fusion around the turn of the century.

Going back to the jersey, the pattern it sports isn’t even decent – more a glib facsimile of the golden oldies from the 90’s than a loving hommage – and Orlando’s dark shade of purple doesn’t quite work here. When you’re adidas and you get beaten by by an independent brand from Hong Kong when it comes to doing properly patterned purple jerseys, you really need to rethink (or preferably, fire) your creative department.

20. FC Cincinnati

FC Cincinnati are the latest team to join the ever-growing MLS family, but they certainly won’t be the best-clad franchise out there. Having finalized their brand, colours, and style too late for adidas to design and press a bespoke Authentic shirt into production, fans are stuck with a catalogue template for the club’s inaugural season. Awkward, that; you’d think a multibillion-Dollar company could do better; the tiny, tiny PlayerLayer brand knocked out both Authentic and Replica shirts for Forest Green within a few months, so quite why adidas is unable to do the same brings into question the Germans’ competence.

On the flip side, this means that Cincy fans are the only set of supporters in the league to be able to buy a Replica grade shirt, yet have it be the exact same as what their heroes wear out on the field. This, together with the pleasing combination of blue and orange, land this shirt higher up our ranking than it has any right to be.

That being said, the club need to do better for next season, but the real lesson here is that Authentic shirts are nonsensical; if Cincinnati players can make do with Replicas, why can’t the rest? Oh right, because $$$$$.

19. San Jose Earthquakes

This is a rather chique effort – if worn on a backwater astroturf training pitch, that is. For the biggest football/soccer league in America, it is woefully underwhelming.

What happened to you, San Jose? This is probably the biggest year-to-year decline in the league this season, going from 2018’s amazing, fault line-inspired kit to this discount training bib. They even managed to mess up the jock tag, which is now multicoloured and clashes immensely with the black.

The geometry of the fault line that defines San Jose geology is still represented, but in ultra fine patterns on the blue chest panel which you will really only be able to see by wedging your nose inbetween a player’s ribs before being politely escorted off the field. The only reason we’ve ranked this ahead of Cincinnati and Orlando is because this effort, despite being awful, is actually bespoke and a slightly better version of the awful Regista template that is terrorizing Europe this season.

18. Montreal Impact

As we slowly creep out of ‘awful’ territory and into the promised lands of ‘merely mediocre’, we are faced with Montreal Impact’s latest offering, which is rather black this year, fitting snugly into the trend of Montreal ditching more and more blue with every new kit.

The franchise prides itself on being the ‘Bleu-blanc-noir’ (blue-white-black), but with white noticably absent we’re not sure how popular this 2019 effort will be. Impact did try to court fans by including the North Star Bell, symbol of the 1642 Montréal supporters group, as a jock tag symbol, but it remains to be seen how well their broader fanbase will take to the sweeping changes in colour scheme since entering the MLS in 2012.

Why is this jersey ranked so low, then? Simple, adidas figured they could save on costs by not bothering with stripes on the back. Good luck distinguishing this from a DC, San Jose, or LAFC jersey when seen from behind. Now that we’re on the topic of that latter team anyway….

17. Los Angeles FC

It’s black, it’s gold, it looks okay, and is now into its second season; remarkable, given that most expansion teams nowadays opt to replace their inaugural home shirt after just a single season (something to do with home kits typically outselling away kits). There are no frills here as gold is kept to a minimum, but the rather subtle pattern lets the shirt down in how overused it has become. Time for a new jersey, we say, as a strong colour combination can only carry you so far. Youtube TV as a sponsor is unfortunate (at best).

16. Seattle Sounders

All good things must come to an end, and for the Sounders’ affiliation with XBOX, that end turned out to be the 2018 season. As a replacement for Microsoft’s gaming division, Brian Schmetzer’s team will see Zulily sponsor their jerseys.

Zulily is an e-commerce giant local to Seattle dealing in women’s and children’s clothing, which begs the question why they are sponsoring the Sounders’ men’s team. Zulily were nice enough to drop the purple from their logo (if that had stayed this kit would be ranked 22nd, ahead of only Union and Toronto), but the font does little to endear them to the casual observer.

It doesn’t help that this jersey design, left over from last year, isn’t really that great anyway, but it does go to show how easy it is to mess up the Sounders’ distinct ‘rave green’ look. That XBOX logo will be sorely missed for years to come, having featured for ten full seasons ever since Seattle got its very own MLS team. As it stands, Hong Kong side Tai Po FC wore lime green better in 2014/2015 than the Sounders do in 2019 – and Tai Po are normally a mid-green team!

15. New England Revolution

As we close in on the halfway mark of this list, New England’s year old home shirt crops up; this one’s really not that interesting, but then the word ‘dull’ does describe the team’s kit hamper judging from past years.

There’s not much to set this one apart from the crowd, with three shades of navy combining into an asymmetric design. This would have looked a lot better with a bit more red and white strewn around the shirt, rather than the meagre portion served up at the collar and cuffs. The adidas spaghetti remains on the sleeves, which doesn’t help the Revolution’s case here either. Bonus points for the jock tag though, very patriotic.

14. Houston Dynamo

After snorting five lines of crack cocaine out of a toilet bowl and clambering onto Wikipedia for inspiration, the luminaries working at adidas’ design department noticed that Houston has a rather sizeable oil and gas industry. One quick call to the marketing department, who themselves had just finished getting a communal lobotomy, and the ‘Energy kit’ was born.

We could have gotten an oil derrick as a shadow print, which would have been subtle and tasteful (and play into the marketing blurbs, of course), but instead we are lumped with what looks like a rejected Nakhon Ratchasima FC shirt. You know you dun goofed when your pattern is so stupid, even a team calling themselves ‘Swat Cat’ wouldn’t be caught dead wearing it (and the Thai have been responsible for quite a few disasters in recent years, mind you). Alternatively, you can interpret the pattern to be some sort of representation of flames, in which case you have to wonder why adidas associates a blazing inferno with materials you really don’t want to suddenly combust.

Why is this so high up our list? For one, the return of ‘Space City Blue’ at the collar is pleasing (even if marketing has to ruin it by claiming the collar stands for Houston’s blue collar workers), for two, the adidas spaghetti is hidden away under the armpits, and for three (is this even correct English?), the sponsor is a cancer centre with a decent logo. Having three such things going for you is something the lower-ranked shirts can only dream of.

13. DC United

The lads from the capital have retained last year’s jersey, which will give Wayne Rooney another opporunity to make this a real classic. The jersey is rather reminiscent of DC’s not-so-distant neighbours, Philadelphia Union, but this one inch striped effort lands much higher in our ranking by virtue of not being a complete affront to its club’s usual colour scheme.

There’s quite a bit of grey in there, but it meshes well enough with the black to not prove too distracting. Still, the plain sleeves do their best to bring the overall package down a few notches, once again revealing the folly of adidas’ dogmatic refusal to have non-plain sleeves. Thankfully, sponsors Leidos put on a better show by tastefully recolouring their logo to match the shirt, whilst the tiniest bit of red shines through at the collar.

It’s an okay effort that won’t set the world alight any time soon; fans may well be eagerly waiting for a return to full black with more red next season.

12. Real Salt Lake

Talking about mediocre, or just rather uninteresting if you want to sound a little nicer; Real Salt Lake retain their 2018 home jersey (and silly name). It’s definitely not the best top they’ve ever had, and neither is it their worst – it’s just, you know, there. It’s a thing. It exists. Definitely a better RSL kit than the all-red affair that was thankfully binned at the end of the 2017 season.

High praise indeed then, for a 120 USD piece of clothing. The only detail of note is the ’05’ on the back, which ensures you won’t forget Salt Lake’s first season in the MLS was back in 2005. Red, gold, and cobalt blue (yes, cobalt) have featured ever since, although you really should be able to get more out of this colour scheme than adidas have managed this year.

11. Colorado Rapids

Stan Kroenke’s boys will be wearing the same home strip for a second year, but shouldn’t have much reason to complain. Sure, the design itself is a little boring, but the claret and light blue (shared with the NHL’s Colorado Avalanche, who are owned by Kroenke’s wife Ann) ensure that the Rapids will always look distinctive in a league obsessed with red, black/navy, and blue.

The fully plain back lets this shirt down, but we can’t help but feel that it was a great idea for the team to drop the previously often used white from their colour palette. The Colorado state flag makes a cameo appearance as jock tag, while the single star above the crest signifies the club’s single MLS Cup title, which came in 2010. The adidas spaghetti is kept to below the armpits, which is a much better (not to mention less high profile) spot for it than on the shoulders.

10. Atlanta United

The thinner stripes on Atlanta’s new home kit are a definite downgrade from the broader specimens that graced their title-winning 2018 kit, but this colour scheme is just too strong to be dragged down to anonymity. The amount of gold used here carefully toes the line between too subtle and too gaudy, and adidas did well to make sure the sleeves don’t look too bad, despite the stripes continuing onto them.

United could have easily ended up with a bad kit like Montreal, but for whatever reason, adidas were kind enough to continue the stripes onto the back (at least partially anyway); this helps to create a strong single look (rather than that suffered by teams like Sunderland, Brentford, and Sheffield United in England right now, who all wear adidas-made striped shirts with plain backs).

Sure, the team will likely be the first to fire their coach (Frank de Boer, how unlucky has he been since leaving Ajax, huh?) and will struggle to defend their title, but at least they’ll do it in style. That jocktag with the outline of the state of Georgia and the club’s year of founding is the proverbial cherry on top of this fine shirt (and probably our personal favourite out of this year’s bunch!). Note that this kit is officially called the ‘Star and Stripes’ jersey, as it has stripes and a brand new star representing the 2018 championship.

9. Minnesota United

Just inside the top 10 we find Minnesota United, who are another recent addition to the MLS roster; wearing their ever recognizable grey in two distinct shades, the Loons get to move into a brand new stadium this year but retain last year’s top. The red button on the collar is supposed to represent a Loons’ eye while the light blue adidas stripes are mercifully stashed beneath the armpits.

adidas has yet to get close to the great jerseys INARIA banged out for the NASL side that served as precursor to the MLS franchise, but did well enough with the sashed design the Loons wore for their inaugural season in 2017. The current jersey, however, is not quite as good and lacks the iconic Loon bird in any noteworthy capacity (beyond the tiny jocktag and no, that ‘eye’ does not count). Perhaps it is best left out for a while though, for as long as Target are sponsors considering a big reticle near a bird might send the wrong message.

8. FC Dallas

Dallas may well be a wildcard pick, considering the club played in broad red and white hoops from 2005 until 2018 when this new design was introduced. This radical new take on their shirt is perfectly executed however, retaining the club’s three main colours whilst tying them into local symbolism; the jersey is inspired by the Texan flag after all.

Going after the wider Texan market is a smart move by Dallas, considering they have to compete for state dominance with Houston, whilst Austin will be joining the league in the near future. The shirt, which features ‘Pride of Texas’ at the back of the neck, remains easily recognizable as belonging to Dallas, and should serve as a template for Philadelphia to show how you can do a meaningful rebranding right.

7. Los Angeles Galaxy

The first time the Galaxy wore a sash was way back in 2003, with this timeless design having since become a staple that survived competitive highs and lows, as well as a rebranding from yellow/green to white/navy/yellow. The fact it disappeared for two years before being brought back following strong fan demand is a testament to its strength.

The cringiest jocktag in the league does stifle our praise for this top a little, but that sash does please us immensely; piping it in yellow was a brilliant idea as a successor to the navy/yellow sash that appeared in 2016, and we’re keen to see how adidas will evolve this design in 2020 when the Galaxy are due a new home kit.

6. Portland Timbers

Ah, Timbers, you lovely dark green lot, you! Their name dates back as far back as 1975, but the current iteration has only been a member of the MLS since 2011. Much like the Rapids and so many other teams we saw previously, they have a single MLS Cup win to their name (2015), which is represented by a lone star above the crest.

The club’s new shirt is a mixed bag compared to its predecessor, with unnecessary white fabric in the collar and sleeve cuffs, but also sports lovely hoops in two tones of dark green (were they a little lighter, you’d almost make a comparison to Steve from the old Blue’s Clues television show, especially with white on the collar now). We wonder if this top would have looked even better with the sleeves rendered in the darker tone, but it’s still good enough to chop its way well into the top 10. Seriously though, get rid of that white.

5. Sporting Kansas City

Because of how pale blue their kits usually are and the previous home shirt being into its second year in 2018, Sporting Kansas City (formerly the Wizards) are one of the select few teams to have escaped a trashy white away shirt this season.

The gimmickry that plagues so many of the ‘community’ kits, as adidas calls them (a sleazy appeal to emotion to sell some overpriced guff), is present on the 2019 home shirt, but it somehow manages to work really, really well. Kansas City have been rocking amazing home shirts that bravely innovate year after year since their rebranding in 2013, which means that this new top is both predictable in its existence yet refreshing in its looks, which toe the line between too gaudy (Red Bulls) and too understated (Impact).

The simians in the marketing department claim the darker colour here is called ‘raw grey’, the collar ‘dark indigo’, and the base ‘Sporting blue’, but we’ll settle for calling the whole thing ‘pretty damn good’. At least they don’t claim the diagonal stripes are ‘inspired by the ever-flowing waves present in the sewers underneath Kansas City’ or something like that. Tip for the 2021 shirt; look to the Slovenian coast for inspiration.

4. Chicago Fire

The concept of naming your club after terrible disasters remains ever so alien for European audiences (apart from MK Dons, which is named after Milton Keynes), but the Chicago Fire have been proud members of the MLS since the 90’s. Where their spiritual cousins, the San Jose Earthquakes, are fourth from bottom in the kit rankings this year, the Springfield, Illinois-based side fall just outside the top three.

A club that refuses to mess with their traditionally-minded shirts, Chicago’s crest is the second oldest in the league behind the Revolution’s. Likewise, the iconic chest band that the club share with Middlesbrough has been a mainstay save for a quartet of years in the early 10’s, when the club experimented with navy (succesfully, in our opinion, as those Quaker Oats shirts are lovely). This season, Fire retain their perfectly fine 2018 shirt with an updated sponsor, as Motorola replace Valspar.

The result is refreshingly traditional in a league that often loses itself in novelty-based shirts, and would have easily cracked the top three if it wasn’t for the fact that the band does not continue onto the back of the shirt. A missed opportunity, especially when you consider that Motorola willingly altered their logo to fit in with this otherwise fine shirt.

3. Columbus Crew

Seldom has a collective sigh of relief registered on the Richter scale, but by jove did the fans of Columbus Crew feel elation when it turned out the plans of rogue owner Anthony Precourt to relocate the franchise to Nashville had been foiled by Ohio state law, which prohibited professional sports teams that had benefitted from public money and facilities from leaving the state without a 6 month delay during which attempts must be made to sell the lot to new, local owners.

As it turned out, both the fans and Precourt won out; the former got to keep their club, whilst the latter was awarded a new expansion birth for the city of Austin, Texas. The makings of a nice cross-country rivalry, certainly., which is scheduled to commence in 2021 when Austin FC will join the MLS.

The Crew surviving meant that their fantastic home kit, the only one among this year’s 24 to have yellow as main colour (although Nashville SC, which will join the league in 2020, will also play in yellow), gets to be used. The subtle checkerboard print couples well with minimal yellow trim and just a hint of white; Acura, Honda’s luxury car brand, adds to the fun with a sleek logo in black. The only criticism that you could realistically level at this is the fact that the usage of black really is minimal, but then that isn’t without precedent in the Crew’s storied history.

2. New York City FC

We take no great pleasure in New York City FC coming in second this year, considering the club is but a filthy sockpuppet of the City Football Group of Manchester City, Melbourne City, Yokohama F Marinos, and Girona CF fame. No surprise then that the club’s colours are light blue, the name involves the word City, and Etihad are main sponsors.

Unfortunately for our biases, this is a mighty fine shirt, and a great example of how to incorporate local history into a fresh, new design. The single navy stripe down the left of the shirt breaks the monotony that was brought on by the lacklustre home tops introduced in 2015 and 2017, which served alongside a a starry night sky design that was later perfected by a Chinese satellite club playing in Hong Kong. Orange is given an even more prominent role this time, with a single pinstripe going down the middle of the navy.

The orange references the Dutch history of New York, who were the drivers behind its original development centuries ago, and is both sensible and useful in that it pairs really well with navy (as evidenced by Cincinnati earlier, who ended up with a low ranking despite rather than because of the combo). City’s fans can be rightfully proud of this brilliant piece of kit, which will serve the club well in 2019 and 2020.

1. Vancouver Whitecaps

Here we are then; the biggest, baddest, bestest (wait, that’s not right) home shirt in the MLS this season! The Vancouver Whitecaps take home the cake with their fifth ever MLS home shirt.

An expansion franchise that became the second Canadian side in the MLS (Toronto being the first) upon joining in 2011, the Whitecaps have always pushed the boat out in terms of novel variations on their white and ‘deep sea’ blue home shirts. One inch stripes, diagonal pinstripes, fades, and even rain-inspired motifs have previously featured, but this year a thick chest band, not unlike that of Chicago Fire, has boldly taken centre stage.

What is not immediately apparent is that this shirt is very loving hommage to the 1979 championship-winning Whitecaps home kit, from when the team was still playing in the old NASL. A classy bit of 70’s kit made by Admiral back then, it has been given a modern retouching which retains all but the continuation of the ‘hoop’ onto the sleeves (this to ensure a maximum profit margin for adidas, as such bespoke sleeves would cost a few extra cents to produce – the Germans’ refusal to do something interesting with sleeves is league-wide).

Besides that omission, the kit is surprisingly complete, right down to the pale blue piping of the hoop and the fact that the design wraps around the back as well (daring in today’s world where stripes and other such design elements on the back of football shirts seem to be public enemy #1). Players’ names and numbers are printed in red just like on the old top, and a slight restyling of the old crest is thrown in as jock tag, with a red maple leaf badge commemorating the ’79 league win. Also, flappy collar – need we really say more?

A thoroughly deserving winner then, which beats the rest of the field by quite a margin despite the top 8 or so shirts this season clearly showing that adidas can cook up some delightful kits if they really put their minds to it (which they sadly rarely do, because who needs nice shirts when you can have huge profit margins?). It would have been especially nice of the Germans to drop the shoulder spaghetti for this one, or at least render it in white, but clearly company interests still outweigh the desire for authenticity.

If you enjoyed today’s quick overview of all 2019 MLS home shirts, be sure to give us a follow on Twitter and bookmark the site as we bring weekly in-depth articles on individual shirts, in which we don’t always criticize quite as harshly as we did today. We’d like to thank you for taking the time to read our thoughts, and we sincerely hope to welcome you to this site once more in the near future. If you’re eager to get an in-depth look at other kits both modern and vintage right now, check out the rest of the site!