I am with you. When you look at the Japanese or French kits, they’re (at least in my eyes) a major step up from this. With all the design resources at Nike’s disposal, you just wonder how a jersey like this made it to production. I have never been the biggest fan of the Waldos, but I suspect they’ll look good on the field. Less so on the average fan…
Leaked shorts for both US kits. It is unclear if the white socks specifically go with these designs or if they just grabbed some white socks. I say this because this same account has plenty of other images where the model is showing off the WNT shirt paired with MNT shorts. Bespoke navy blue shorts for each kit as the primary option. Home kit appear to be solid navy while the away kit has the matching red line on the sides and the monochrome crest. I would imagine there’s a white change option available, too. More pics w/ the upcoming Team USA Kit 📸 pic.twitter.com/h2euwZfPOb— Vlad Ciutacu (@vladieboi) March 14, 2026 More pics w/ the upcoming Team USA Kit 📸 pic.twitter.com/688iQGrhve— Vlad Ciutacu (@vladieboi) March 14, 2026
like the Waldo, the authentic players version of the home shirt looks really bad without the name/number with all the white space. Also, the replica version will look bad if someone decides to put numbers over the stripes which I've seen a lot with the old Waldos. As a collector I really want an authentic that'll have the WC sleeve patches and the game info and player name/number for whichever game and player stands out after the tournament is over. For WB22 I did an Adams-4 and the Iran match on the blue 2nd shirt. The thing is I don't think I want to wear the blank authentic around during the tournament. But I do like it enough that maybe I just say screw it and buy both the authentic and the replica and wear the replica and not worry about spilling beer and greasy food on it.
I think different shirt-shorts color combinations are possible during the WC based on what the opposing team is wearing. Not sure but I think if the opposing team is wearing a dark blue/black shirt we wouldn't wear the navy blue shorts with the Waldo. I also haven't looked through all the permutations of possible opponents in the knockouts with their leaked kit colors. Someone on here will probably do it! As for the second shirt, the photos of the shirt on the racks continue to look bad to me but the promo shots on fit athlete/models look good. My body type is no longer the latter so I'll have to see how it looks in person!
You are likely seeing some differences in the materials. From what I’ve seen, the stars on the replica appear to be embossed whereas the authentic has them woven into the fabric. I saw the replicas in person the other day and thought they looked great. I think the stars can look over exposed or under exposed depending on the lighting. These two photos below are both replicas but you can see how the visibility of the stars looks very different.
I am feeling more confident in my theory that Monday will be the release ⭐️🇺🇸🔜 pic.twitter.com/kWsKgol8fn— U.S. Soccer Men's National Team (@USMNT) March 14, 2026
Thanks for the info. Almost all of my US shirts are authentics, to me the materials they use are far superior to what's used in replicas. Plus authentics usually have a bunch of other details I like like vents and panels and small features. Almost sure I'll get the secondary dark shirt as an authentic as long as I can fit into one.
I doubt we’ll wear the dark kit vs Paraguay. Their 1st kit has red and white vertical stripes. It would be a bad call to confuse the vast number of non-regular soccer viewers to have our opponent wear red and white stripes, especially for our opening match.
Dear Nike, Yeah, that’s why the Yankees wear pink caps on the diamond for half their games and other off-field shit. smh The US doesn’t seem to have problems selling blue jerseys on the regular. If you’re worried we won’t sell enough jerseys during a World Cup year in which we’re the host, I don’t know what to tell you. A gimmicky color change? That’s what warmup shirts are for. And third jerseys. And other merch. And the two year cycle between World Cups. Optimizing profit, clearly an American ideal, will be maximized by us being the host nation. Cheer up, though. You got the home jersey right. And the away jersey looks almost blue. At least it’s not your usual royal blue. Cheers, TK
Players had a lot of input into these uniforms after they didn't like 2022. For the record, I liked the away kits, though I agree they were not particularly "American." Interesting read. Highlights: Weston came up with crazy ideas that Adams and others rejected Several players wanted black kits despite the overall objective to make the kits more American, and it's clear players wanted one of the kits to be "something they can wear to the club" or bar. The compromise was the aways -- a very dark blue they call obsidian. The homes wanted to be big and bold and came out of some players wanting the Waldos but Nike and US Soccer not wanting to go retro. https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/71...kit-jersey-photos/?source=user_shared_article https://sports.yahoo.com/soccer/art...ame-to-be-after-2022-criticism-120000850.html
fifa is so adverse to any possible kit clash that i could see them making us wear our away against paraguay, who'd wear their home with white shorts and socks. although if we have spare white shorts for our home, we'll probably wear that.
I think it is more likely the US plays in the home Jersey to make Paraguay play in their blue jerseys.
I've read countless articles on this US kit launch, and several instances have mentioned using this as a possible foundation to establish an identity for the federation going forward, like you see with Brazil, Argentina, Croatia, the Netherlands, and other very recognizable countries. From the Athletic: Another one from the Athletic: From Yahoo: From US Soccer's own website: There is a great half hour podcast from "USA Soccercast" with Maribeth Towers, US Soccer VP of Consumer Products that talks about how these came about. Additionally, US Soccer's own podcast will have an episode releasing on Wednesday at 11 AM EST with two Nike designers. I am particularly interested to hear what they have to say. I really love the waldo as the USSF kit. It's not my all time favorite kit from the team, but I recognize it would instantly be recognizable on a global scale like the other big teams. I think it's needed. It would probably help with fan unity and also help with perceived respect from the rest of the football world. It is weird that we don't have a singular design that gets iterated on year after year. Reading between the lines, the fact this was mentioned in so many different articles, and also from important people like executives at Nike tells me it's something being discussed going forward. Needless to say, I will be watching how USSF and Nike handle the identify of the national team into the future.