After watching last nights match with Guatemala, I came to an obvious conclusion: Its time to for US fans to stop wearing red shirts at US home matches. It was such a noble idea when it started. US fans would wear red because we would stand out amongst all of the blue and white jersies commonly worn by many of our opposing CONCACAF fans. The reality is the following: 1. We don't have a red colored jersey, so even our diehard fans who want to wear their $80.00 "Donovan" home or away jersey end up appearing on tv as if they are rooting for the opposition. 2. Almost all soccer t-shirts made by nike to represent the US team are white or blue. It is almost impossible to find even a red t-shirt that promotes the US Nats. 3. Many casual fans dont get the message to wear red and wear the most common t-shirt that they have - a white or a blue one. Therefore we all end up looking like we are supporting the visitors. From watching tv, it looked as if the fans were 95% Guatemalan (white and blue) and 5% US (red). But that obviously was not the case.The US fans actually sounded strong last night with clearly audible "USA" chants. Also, the Guatemalan fans, normally boisterous, didn't sound that loud. Let's ditch the red shirts and do what they do in every other nation in the world: wear the National team's home jersey! It's ridiculous to have to tell fans that they cannot wear their team's jersey to a match that they have been waiting years to finally see.
The obvious answer is that the USSF should lean on Nike to make a red jersey. Personally I always wear my 98 WC jersey that I still have. The only exception is if it's an especially hot day and we aren't playing a blue opponent, in which case I'll sometimes wear my Nike soccer cutoff T. Nike needs to produce a red jersey, even if it's only a 3rd (we've had 3rd jerseys before--remember the light blue ones from the mid-90s?), that way more people will wear them.
If our fans had their act together Birmingham would have looked like the stadium in Panama last night. It was a sea of red. Finding a red shirt isn't too hard. I wore my red Nike US Soccer T-shirt yesterday. I don't think as fans we yet have the fervor to show our support for our nation's team like someother nations. Give us time
nike either needs to start making red shirts or we need to just change the color to white or blue. one or the other. its so stupid that i can wear my US stuff anywhere but if i go to a game i wear an abercrombie t-shirt. makes no sense. wearing all white would be pretty unique anyway. does anyone else? australia? tons of teams wear red already.
Yeah, but casual fans (as in less-hardcore fans, not hoolies) don't know they're supposed to wear red. Australia wears yellow and green, but tons of teams wear white too (England, Germany, South Africa (I think), Russia, New Zealand, others). Plus an all-white crowd doesn't have the intimidation factor that red or blue does. I don't have a problem if we wear white jerseys at home against most teams, but if we're playing a team at home that wears red (Costa Rica, Trinidad, Panama, Canada, and maybe some of the island minnows are the only teams in CONCACAF that do) then we should wear red and force them to switch shirts. That way our fans can wear red all the time without looking like they're cheering for the opposition in a game against Costa Rica.
I say we keep red shirts if only to remind ourselves that we are free of the Werner Fricker regime that gave us the silly edict abut having minimal red on the uniforms. I understand his hatred of communism, but we gotta be who we are. We had red in our flag LONG before Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin came on the scene. No disrespect to the late Mr. Fricker on his political views, GRHS. But to impose it on his teams? Not a good thing IMHO.
I always were a red Adidas soccer t-shirt to matches. We should stick with red, but we need to get the message out there to casual fans. They could add a little "Wear Red" remark to their local advertising. When I mention to people that they're "expected" to wear red, they get a stupid look on their face and tilt their heads. Hell, even if it's a ManUtd kit , wear RED!
I used to be strongly pro-red for the fans, but Nike's refusal to play along makes it impractical. A quick glance at ussoccerstore.com shows four red T-shirts out of dozens of shirts, and two of those are the same shirt in different sizes (women's and girl's), so really they only have three red T-shirts for sale. Wearing white is pathetic, I think, so that leaves blue. Blue's saving grace is that AFAIK we are the only country in CONCACAF that wears navy blue, and really as far as colors go we should only worry about teams in our own region. Navy isn't as noticeable as bright blue, but I think it's classier (a metaphor for our team vis-a-vis most of CONCACAF, no?). One problem with navy is that it can be very hot in the sun. That's why I wear my scarf with the red side showing.
I don't think we should abandon red; but unless USSF gives out red jerseys again at the gate we should give up on the idea of looking like Panama last night. Predominately red with some blue and white sprinkled in has a very nice effect on a section. I just hate it when US supporters wear green, orange, black, yellow, etc and put zero thought whatsoever into it.
The message will never get out to the casual fans because, after 8 or so years, it still hasn't. Newspapers, radio ads, and news reports commonly do tell the fans what to wear and it still doesn't work. It's gonna look pretty f-ing sad if you attend the US vs/ England match in Chicago in a red Man Utd uniform while England is wearing red and the US is wearing white. Get rid of the red t-shirts and buy a white home jersey. It's what every other nation does.
Aww Mike. don't you know it's much more fun to: criticize wearing red, bitch about ESPN and their commentators and the like, than to actually show up and support the team. It's a dam site cheaper too...
I could go for that, but I doubt I could convince the row of Young Republicans in front of me last night to drop 80 bucks for a jersey. Especially considering that the next soccer match he attends with be his yet-to-be-born son's.
I was surprised by the amount of 94 jerseys and 94 tshirt reps I saw at the stadium. Saw 1 red stripes jersey, 2 red stripes Ts, and 2 denim jerseys. I really like the look of the wavy red stripes. I think it would work pretty well with navy numbers along with navy shorts and white socks. More on topic. I wore red and wear red, but most of the US fans did in fact show up in Guatemala's colors. Sam's Army section always looks great and even if the rest of the fans decide to wear Navy I think Sam's Army should stick to red.
We should wear white because the team almost always wears white. Even when the team had a red jersey, they almost always wore white. It's time to face reality folks. White's the way to go.
I thought the wearing of red was a hallmark of Sam's Army, not necessarily of all USA fans. I only brought one red t-shirt to Korea for the games: an Old Navy USA 2002. I figured I would wear white to the Korea game, as their fans wore red. I found out that Sammers like their red & won't change! I bought one of the ubiquitous "Be the Reds" t-shirts there for $4 & wore it around (it was hard to find a 3X though!). Even if all other US fans wear blue or white, I see no sentiment in SA to change.
Exactly. So you buy the white National team home jersey and your young republican friends can spend 15 bucks on a white USA soccer t-shirt, or they can simply wear what they were probably wearing anyway: a blue or white shirt, sweater or jacket. It works every way. (I would bet my life that the young republicans were not wearing red shirts)
Just a question: how many people were there from Sam's Army wearing red shirts? 100, 200, 500, 1000? Because even if it was 5,000 they would have been far outnumbered by the people wearing white and blue who supported either side. The point is, if we are supposed to wear red because we "stand out" and "look intimidating" then the plan is not working. You dont stand out and look intimidating when you are 1/30th (assuming there were 1000 sammers) of the attendees. It makes it look as if only 1/30th of the fans are supporting the US. That is exactly why Bruce Arena once again felt frustrated when he said that they were playing in front of a Guatemalan partisan crowd. He felt that every Joe in the stands wearing a white t-shirt was actually rooting against him. In reality, that was not the case. It sucks for the morale of the team to look out in the stands of a home match and think that everyone is supporting the other team.
And I don't care if people show up and make noise as long as they are wearing shirts that show support of their team, not the opposition. I'm playing devil's advocate, of course, but it is really just the same thing. If eveyone showed up to a Mexico match wearing green but made a ton of noise, what good would that do? The players would think that there were even MORE mexicans at the match. Either way you cut it: Making noise supports the team as does wearing colors that show support of the team. When the players walk onto the field and see a sea of blue and white with a tiny bit of red mixed in between, they think that they are not being supported. Arena's comments after the match are testament to this fact. He thought we were outnumbered in fans by over 2-1, when in reality it was far more even.