From mlsnet and their preseason reports: I guess I missed this - but where did these awful nicknames come from? Is this something that MLS is trying to stick down our throats? I know for awhile they referred to DC United as something similar to this, but I assumed they realized how awful it was and discontinued using it. Are the Revs: "Men in Blue with Blue Shorts" Or is Dallas: "The Red and Horizontal Stripes"? I mean, I can tolerate a lot of what MLS has to do to try and sell it in a crowded market. But these are just so uncreative and painful. MLS, please send these the way of the shootout and countdown clock.
the metrostars, or "red and black" have been trying to get this to stick for some time. its as good of a marketing idea as the storied "MPF" metro playoff fever campaign. its about as irritating as the USSF trying to get the crowd to sing the "goals goals goals for the red white and blue" philips song. but hey, if it makes them happy, so be it. why its necessary, i have no idea...why not just metros? maybe its a literary thing where you don't want to repeat the same word too many times in the same article. who knows, who cares. will i ever say "hey, did you catch the red and black game this weekend?" to anyone? no. they'd probably think i was talking about checkers.
Well Dallas doesn't have stripes. But that men in red, red and black, black and red, men in black is just crappy, lame, lazy and cliched writing. That's what you get when interns write. Emerald City Gazzette writers are Pulitzer prize winners by comparison.
All over the world they refer to teams by their colors...... Inter Milan = Nerazzuro (The black and blues) Juve = Bianconeri (The black and whites) AC Milan = rossoneri (The red and black) The Italian National Team - Gli Azzurri (The blues) I forget which team in England is "The Blues" is it Birmingham? The french are the tri-color right? There are probably more examples throughout the world as well..... I dont mind at all when the local rags refer to the Metros as the "red and black" I think its ok...
i wonder what would happen if i wrote a memo to my boss evaluating a job: To: Boss From: Stinky Re: Smith File Just wanted to give an update on the Smith file. The "Men in Ties" are doing well and close to completing the memo. The "Women in Skirts" are also doing one helluva job.
dont' know if it would bother us as much if they didn't use it as often and put it in quotes. chelsea are the blues, manU are the reds, but you don't see "blues", "reds" in the paper, and more often than not, the papers pick this lingo up from the fans, where these terms often appear in songs. american sports do it a lot do...pinstripes/yankees, blues/giants, redsox...errr....ummmm....redsox
ManU are actually the Red Devils (you can see a red devil in their badge). Both Birmingham City and Chelsea are The Blues (I have a Chelsea patch on my backpack that says, "come on you blues") Coventry City I believe are the Sky Blues. Liverpool are the Reds. Italy is indeed the Azzuri. France I believe are Les Bleus (also the Blues). Holland are the Oranje. I don't really have a problem with it. Here in Oklahoma, the University of Okla are nicknamed The Sooners, but you can call them the Crimson & Cream and everyone knows what you're talking about. Same in Michigan with the Maize & Blue. The Red & Black isn't going to replace MetroStars (though I think they should drop the "Stars" and just go by "Metros"), it's just something else to call them. Of course you can go over board by calling them that everytime you mention the Metros in a story. A given rule should be that you use the Red & Black once for every 6-8 times you use Metros.
I don't think anyone's sticking it down anyone throats, per se. It's been in practice for some time and it's just a casual nickname the respective PR departments use in their releases. I think "Men in Red" sounds dumb, but then again no one I know uses it in conversation to refer to the Fire. DC is called the "red and black" just like the Metros are which to today makes no sense to me.
I wonder why MLS allowed and allows so many clubs to have the same colors. NY/NY, Dallas and DC all appear to claim red & black and Chicago at times has used those colors too. Doesn't seem all that marketing savy. Instead, Chicago should be red. DC United should be black and white. And NY/NJ and Dallas should flip a coin to see who keeps red & black. If Dallas loses I would think a burnt orange and white would be a good fit (colors debated for awhile now on the Burn forum). NY/NJ could go with a darker blue if they inexplicably lost the coin flip.
Good Point, I was thinking of an old pinstripe horizontal they used to have. Didn't they? This seems much more appropriate instead of using some boardroom dreamt name from some MLS marketeer and surrounding it in quotes. Let the nicknames evolve. I agree that I disregard them when I see them in MLS print and just shake my head. I would just hope if MLS realizes no one uses these terms (local papers, local news, etc) - then just let them go away until something does evolve.
Using colors as a synonym for a team is typical in Spain as well. Los blancos, blaugranas, rojiblancos, blancirojos, etc. (Madrid, Barcelona, Atletico Madrid, Bilbao (although I might have mixed up the last two). I thought that the distinction btwn DC and NY/NY was that the former are the Black and Reds and the latter are Red and Blacks. As for Chicago, to the best of my knowledge they've never had black in their color scheme (though I mistakenly though they did, too, at one time). Colors are red, white, and navy blue. But the regular home uniform has always been an all red uniform, so it's a justified "the men in red" appellation. I can see how these nicknames could be irritating, but they do have precedence in Europe. Whether the MLS brass came up with it or not, I don't know, but I'm pretty sure it's been used to an extent in the media (e.g. pretty sure Chicago Tribune uses it). The real test is if fans start using it. How many people call ManU the red devils when talking to each other? I've never heard it. Wolverhampton, on the other hand, regularly gets called Wolves, though technically the name of the club is Wolverhampton Wanderers. Yeah, I know that these are pet names that I'm foraying into, but the idea is still that it's what the fans call them that counts. As a side note, in Spain, and you want to talk about Madrid, that's "El Real," unlike my other favorite Spanish team, "La Real," which is from San Sebastian.
No argument there - for a 2nd or 3rd uniform. Yep. They had a horizontal pinstripe in 1997 and 1998 when that style was all the rage in MLS. No one is arguing that Chelsea or Liverpool or whoever the hell else isn't referreed to by their colors from time to time. My point and Stinky's point is that the way MLS does it is LAME. Liverpool isn't "The men in Red" they are the reds. No one says " the men in blue take on arsenal at Stamford Bridge today" They call them simply, the blues. And why even bring up the "men" part. Are there women on these teams? Freddy Adu may complicate matters - but kids aren't on these teams. How about saying "the Reds travel to Columbus to take on the Crew"? Then there is that black and red OR red and black business. Which is DC - which is Metro? And then what the hell are the Dallas Burn - although we'd rather get left out of this trite phraseology. Its NOt a big deal - but the way these nameless MLS writers write is just LAME. Note to MLS: Hire me. I will quit my lucrative job in Austin and move to NY and write this stuff for half what I get paid now.
wait one second... if this panned out for you, would you switch allegiances and support the "Red and Black"?
This is what pisses me off. We've been red and black since day one. Back in '96 DC was either black and white or red and white and NY was black and white. They both took our colors, so they don't get any special name treatment
F that. The Burn have always worn red shirts and black shorts, ever since Day One. Why should they change for a team who started as black and white in 1996, but changed in 1997 because of their former GM's AC Milan fetish?
Actually, the 1996 DC United home unis were black with red trim and the three white stripes on the chest. They later dropped the red trim, but I believe they have revived it for the 2004-05 version. I don't know when they started referring to the team as the black-and-red, but they certainly beat it into the ground on the official website. Not sure how I feel about that one, and I don't think I've ever heard any of my fellow fans use the nickname. I suppose they could follow New Zealand's lead and dub themselves the "Mostly-Blacks."
i think that's the point. if the media and/or fans call them that, its fine. when the team/league itself starts calling the team that out of nowhere, putting it in quotes and repeating it throughout the article....its a horse of a different color. speaking of horses....this one seems to still be breathing.... quick...someone take another whack at it.
Me either, dc united are the "Black and White". No red to speak of in their home uniforms. BLACK AND WHITE!