USA – Football Kit Geek

I wanted to start looking at football kits in a slightly different way and was thinking on how best to approach this, so here goes the Journeyman Series. Where I will be taking some time to review the kits worn of those players we regard as a “Journeyman”.

Journeyman Series #1 – Freddy Adu

For those Football Manager addicts, the name Freddy Adu needs no introduction, the “Wonderkid” first hit the headlines when he signed a contract with the MLS at the tender age of just 14 in 2003 and was picked up by DC United in the 2004 player draft as number one pick.

The eyes of the world were on the youngster, photo shoots with Pele, high profile trial at Manchester United all followed and heaped the pressure on the his shoulders, unfortunately that weight of expectation was never truly fulfilled.

However we are here to talk about the kits worn by Mr Adu not his footballing career. From his first club, DC United in 2004 he has played for 14 different clubs in 8 countries in 14 years (including a year out of the sport), as well as representing United States at Under 17, Under 20, Under 23 and Senior teams.

* on loan from Parent Club

Above you can see a selection of the kits worn through out the ongoing career of Freddy Adu, he is still playing at Las Vegas Lights and only 29, so I would expect to see a couple more clubs added to this list over the coming years.

Some Kit Highlights:

DC United, 2004

The first home kit worn by Freddy Adu, a classy Adidas kit, simple black with the “3 stripes” in white, including the band across the chest.

United States, 2006

There is something about United States kits that I really like, the combination of colours and the way often change these colours around just works well for me.

United States, 2012

Another example of United States kit, this time revisiting the historic “Sash” and using a deep red for the home kit.

Tampa Bay Rowdies, 2015

Any chance I get to take a look at a Tampa Bay Rowdies shirt I will take it, this one using a basic Nike Template was worn in 2015 and for me just works and enhancing the template.

Las Vegas Lights, 2018

Looking at this Las Vegas Lights kits, one word springs to mind…. unique! Flashes of neon against the black, screams Vegas at night and made by Australian sportswear manufacturers BLK, famously known for they Rugby League kits.

So my Journeyman series starts here, let me know what you think…. any kit highlights for you from Freddy Adu’s career, anything from the teams he played for in Turkey, Finland or Brazil.

And if there is a Journeyman you would like to see featured in this series, then please let me know.

With an explosion and colour and design The 1994 World Cup rolled into new territory and into a new market when 15th Tournament headed off to the USA!

For the third time the tournament format remained unchanged which meant between 17th June and 17th July 1994 there were 24 teams taking part, split into six groups of four teams, followed by the knock out stage of competition to give us a total of 52 games to look at.

In terms of kits there was a leap from the 1990 World Cup in terms of designs, almost all kits had some form of added splashes of colour (for example, the Adidas three strips in Sweden, Bulgaria, Romania), design element (seen with Nigeria, South Korea, Morocco) and even the plain kits had elements of water mark contained within the shirt (think Netherlands, Italy, Brazil).

In terms of manufacturers, Adidas again led the way supplying the most teams playing but their number declined from 1990 World Cup where they had 15 countries in their ranks, this time round they had 10 countries. Umbro appear next on the list supplying 4 countries, all from Central and South America, something of surprise with a brand that is historically linked with the Home Nations. Other brands such as Lotto, Diadora, Reebok, Mitre also graced the field but there were significant absentees from the manufacturers that we see today in Puma and Nike, who where to enter the market in big way after this tournament.

We need to talk about Adidas, wow…. in my opinion some of their greatest designs appeared at USA 94 and none more-so than the hosts themselves. USA’s classic “Stars” and “Stripes” kits, which I think should be discussed as a pair, as they were seamlessly interchangeable with their respective shorts and socks, any combination which they took to the pitch just worked beautifully, in their 4 games they used 3 different combinations of kit, a true World Cup classic kit up there with Denmark in 1986 – click here for that tournament’s kit log

Other classic kits seen from Adidas were Nigeria’s second choice kit, a unique design and something that is now the inspiration behind their 2018 World Cup Kit, one of the best we have seen so far this year. Ireland also had unique designs from Adidas and I believe these kits, particularly the away kit being underrated as one of the best away kits Ireland have had, they were also short lived designs with Ireland moving across to Umbro shortly after the conclusion of the World Cup.

Adidas also introduced some template designs which at the time I did not like but have grown on me over the years, particularly Sweden’s away kit and Argentina’s away kit, although when I think of that kit I have an image of Maradona screaming into the camera after scoring (the less said about that the better).

There was some unusual sights in both Quarter-Finals and Semi-Finals, where there games with both teams wearing the “away” strips, Netherlands v Brazil, Romania v Sweden and Sweden v Brazil, a common theme of yellow there but after looking into the reason behind this, there is no clear reason why this choice was made, if anyone has any thoughts or ideas about this please let me know.

Eventual winners, Umbro wearing Brazil wore they home kit 4 times including the final and away 3 times, where they combined the away shirt and socks with home shorts to give us a smart all blue (although slightly different shades blue, ahead of their time?) variation.