In an interview with USA Today, Nike’s vice president of North America communications, defended the company’s design of the USA home jersey for 2015 that features a white shirt with black trim.
The biggest complaint among soccer fans in the United States this week is that the shirt has no red and blue in it. Black, white and yellow are not the colors of the USA.
“Not every team pays homage to the flag,” Charlie Brooks said on FTW. “Take Germany’s kit for example, world champions. The German flag is yellow, red and black. The kit is white with black trim on it. I understand people asking about the colors, but there’s also that level of not all national teams have to represent the flag.”
However, Brooks’ words don’t hold much weight. Germany’s home shirt for 2014/15 is white, black, gold and red.
But if he means Germany’s women’s home shirt for the 2015 Women’s World Cup, that one is white, black and red.
Neither shirt is yellow, red and black 2 out of the 3 colors represented on the national flag is better than Nike’s 1 out of 3 for the new USWNT shirt.
Brooks said that Nike wanted the jersey to “paint inspiration for the team itself, something crisp, stylish, sharp, strong and impactful, like the team itself.”
Brooks added that US Soccer is pleased with the design. But they would say that, wouldn’t they?
“They’re stoked,” Brooks said. “They love the uniforms.”
An important footnote to add is that Nike confirmed that the USA Men’s National Team will not be wearing this design as their home jersey during 2015, so there is a silver lining.
Regarding the design of the shirt, this may be another one where it looks better on television than it does close up. From a distance, the USA Women’s 2015 jersey is distinctive and the yellow-colored socks adds a unique perspective.
It’s only on close-up view (as below) that the shirt really does little to stoke interest. The shirt just looks like a white shirt with black trim. And the blue emblematic triangle is something that people won’t see when the jersey is worn.
The jury is out on this one. Let’s see how it looks on television during a match to see whether our opinions change at all.
