US Open Cup Final and Campeones Cup tomorrow
Inter Miami host Houston tomorrow in the US Open Cup Final. Kickoff is set for 8:30 pm ET on CBS Sports Network and Telemundo. Afterward, stick around for the Campeones Cup as LAFC take on Tigres. Kickoff for that one is at 11 pm ET on MLS Season Pass on Apple TV. And, just for good measure, they threw a couple of regular season games in tomorrow night as well. Take a look at the full schedule here.
Sign up for The Daily Kickoff in your inbox! The Daily Kickoff is more than an article – it can be delivered to your email account as well.
It’s Jersey Week here at MLS. No, not a week dedicated to the fictional place they keep talking about on Extratime. A week dedicated to the shirts your favorite team wears on the pitch. Basically, there are special offers and discounts running until Sept. 30 on MLSstore.com and we have an excuse to take a breath before we get back to talking about actual soccer tomorrow. Let’s… [spins the Big Ole Wheel O’ Content Ideas]... pass out some superlatives to some of this year’s most notable kits.
Quick note after going back through a lot of these: I’m hopeful one day we’re going to get a kit release that just says “I dunno, we thought it looked cool” and teams won’t have to talk about how they chose the color blue because of a tenuous-at-best connection to the Battle of Hastings or whatever. Today isn’t that day, but that’s ok because a lot of these look really good.
We never really got to talk about the third kits that have come out over the last few months but, uh, it kind of seems like everyone nailed it.
The Red Bulls’ “Freestyle Kit” is the best-executed idea of the bunch and is a cool nod to New York’s claim to inventing hip-hop before letting other cities do it better. In another world maybe they incorporate some notable New York artists and groups into the graffiti elements, but overall the idea works well. Toronto’s “Energy Kit” is cool and interesting and it looks good and is very third kit in a good way. And NYCFC’s “Parks Kit” is maybe a little too muted for a third kit in my opinion, but in a vacuum is a very, very good-looking shirt.
It seems like we’re getting more and more third kits as we go along here. The process to create these kinds of things generally lasts about two years and there are usually certain requirements to meet before you can get one, etc., etc. But hopefully, we’re going to keep seeing an increase in third kits throughout the league as we go along. These turned out so well that other teams should be doing everything they can to get in on this.
I didn’t mention the "404 Kit" in the third kit group because I’ll admit to needing a moment to warm up to this one in a way the other ones didn’t require. That being said, this is one of those that looks way better in person than it does in a photoshoot and this is one of those that will forever be associated with a certain moment in a club’s history. In Atlanta’s case, that moment is a summer transfer window that introduced Tristan Muyumba, Xande Silva and Saba Lobjanidze to the league. It will always be tied to Xande Silva ruining defenders’ lives as Atlanta United started to look like “Atlanta United” again and that’s a really good thing to be tied to.
We’ve had some time to sit with this year’s new crop of jerseys and Seattle’s "Bruce Lee Kit" remains the boldest one of the group to totally hit the mark. When teams go through the design process of each kit they essentially submit a mood board of ideas that gets worked into a selection of designs. Seattle’s mood board most likely consisted of something like a picture of Bruce Lee doing something awesome, a dragon and the color red. It probably looked hilariously over the top. Like Mac from "It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia" made a collage. But all of those elements came together and produced a secondary kit that’s the most distinct and well-executed of the bunch.
I can’t decide how I feel about LA calling it the “LA Kit.” I mean… they’re not wrong, but…
Sorry, getting distracted here. This thing is outstanding. It’s such an excellent color scheme that it’d be next to impossible for them to get it wrong. It makes a relatively straightforward design look great. It didn’t need to be anything off the wall. And it continues a great trend of the club building off a well-established design for their secondary kit. The green and yellow make it readily distinguishable as a Galaxy kit and I think more teams should stick with a standardized look for their secondary the way they do for their primary.
It can be tough to stand out and claim a look that people instantly tie to your team. I think Minnesota are onto something with this design. Instead of sticking with plain light blue and black kits, I’m hoping they continue to incorporate the light purple and some kind of varying gradient into their stuff going forward. It looks great, it’s unique and it’s good enough to be a thing you associate with Minnesota United. Maybe in the future they’ll circle back to similar ideas and build off this one.
It has Five Stripes. I was going to lose my mind if the Five Stripes had another kit that didn’t have five stripes or just had five lines and called it a day. I just want to remind everyone I can’t be held accountable for whatever I say or do if they ever go away from this general template ever again. And that the “17’s Kit” is really, really good.
FC Cincinnati's Acosta named Player of the Matchday: FC Cincinnati midfielder Luciano Acosta, fresh off signing a new contract extension, has been named MLS Player of the Matchday presented by Continental Tire for Matchday 34 of the 2023 MLS season. The Argentine No. 10 provided a goal and an assist in Cincy’s 3-0 home victory over Charlotte FC – including a solo-run-and-finish from midfield.
- Take a look at how Houston Dynamo owner Ted Segal helped to turn potential into progress in Houston.
- Charles Boehm looked at the most impressive young players of Matchday 33 & 34.
- The 2023 MLS NEXT Pro Golden Boot race ended in a historic three-way tie.
- Here’s how to watch and stream the Campeones Cup meeting between LAFC and Tigres UANL.
- Here’s your Team of the Matchday presented by Audi.
- Voting for the AT&T 5G Goal of the Matchday is now open.
Good luck out there. Don’t worry, the Pup Cup will be here soon.
