King Kaufman's Sports Daily
National teams and patriotic themes demand red, white and blue, not black, mustard and rust. Plus: The secret of spontaneous Stanley Cup team photos.
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June 25, 2007 | The U.S. men's soccer team came from behind Sunday to beat Mexico 2-1 in the final and win the CONCACAF Gold Cup, the championship of North and Central America and the Caribbean.
It was a historic win for the Americans, who continued their recent dominance over Mexico, winning for the ninth time in 12 tries. It was the first time since 1934 that the U.S. had fallen behind Mexico, then come back and won.
But I want to talk about uniforms.
Not to tread on Paul Lukas' beat, but faithful reader and soccer fan Paul Thompson passes along the news that the U.S. women's team has new uniforms, and they are ugly.
The men's jerseys are no great shakes either. They look vaguely British, somehow, but at least they stick roughly to the color scheme of the American flag.
Or at least to darkened versions of flag blue and red. If you want the real thing, you have to look to officially licensed outerwear.
The women's team has gone to a dull gold that's popular in sporting circles these days.
What's the deal with that? What's wrong with U.S. flag red, white and blue? Not to put too fine a point on it, as Gregg Easterbrook is fond of saying, but the most successful color scheme in world history.
Fans of the women's national soccer team can give three cheers for the rust, navy and Gulden's mustard.
I'm not the flag-wavinest Cub Scout in the pack but I think national teams should wear the flag colors. The Mexican team, among many praiseworthy others, wears the colors of its national flag.
I also think the New England Patriots, the Philadelphia 76ers and the Washington Nationals, all of which used to wear red, white and blue and don't anymore -- though the Nationals come close -- should all wrap themselves in the flag again immediately, as the Washington Capitals have done.
The Caps deserve praise for ditching their blue, black and copper -- three cheers for that mishmash, eh? -- color scheme and bringing back Old Glory for next year. The Nationals get a special jeer for changing their colors from flag red, white and blue when they moved to the capital of the United States. Even if the old red, white and blue were the colors of the French flag.
The Nationals officially wear red, white and blue, but the gold and black trim are so prominent that I have never once looked at that uniform and thought "flag." Have you?
That is, the way I used to look at the Montreal Expos uniforms and think, "Three cheers!"
