World Cup 2010 Jerseys: USA

April 29th, 2010 | by: Daryl | View Comments

The USA has a complicated history with jerseys. Unlike other teams, they’ve never 100% settled on a definitive style, arguably to the detriment of the team’s identity.

For example, Argentina has stuck with sky blue and white stripes. Italy doesn’t deviate from blue. Brazil has been canary yellow ever since 1950. But USA jerseys have switched both colour and pattern a few times over the years. Usually a mix of either red, white or blue, but let’s not forget the incredible(y bad?) denim and stars home shirt from 1994.

Read on for a review of the USA’s home and away shirts for World Cup 2010.

USA Home Shirt

Want one? Your USA World Cup home jersey is available now in our store.

For their World Cup 2010 adventure, the USA will be wearing something a lot simpler than in 1994, with zero denim. So that’s already a plus. In fact, they’re actually going a little bit retro, with the diagonal stripe (or sash, although stripe sounds better) echoing/honouring the stripe of the jerseys worn at the 1950 World Cup, when USA famously beat England 1-0. Co-incidence that the US plays England at World Cup 2010? Possibly not.

The thing I genuinely like about this jersey is that it’s simple. Possibly some will be disappointed with just how white the shirt is, and the fact that the red and blue touches are minimal (basically: red trim on sleevs, blue collar). But I’d argue that the mostly red crest and the blue Nike swoosh add a second (but still minimal) layer of colour, and the fact that the diagonal stripe is white and backgrounded as opposed to red or blue, ensures that that one feature doesn’t dominate the jersey.

I also like that while this shirt echoes the 1950 shirt, it isn’t a carbon copy. Almost as if the players are being challenged to make their own history rather than living entirely in the shadow of an earlier team. Or maybe I’m reading too much into that stripe.

My only criticism would be the collar. Because the jersey is already bare bones, the simple crew neck collar is maybe a little too simple. I’d have preferred to see either a v-neck or maybe some sort of poppable collar.

That said, the minimal colours of the shirt make a lot more sense when you see the full uniform, as worn by Clint Dempsey at the top of this post. It’s predominantly white from head to toe. Where earlier US kits have been cluttered, this World Cup 2010 kit has clarity.

USA Away Shirt

Want one? Buy your USA World Cup away jersey from our store.

The away jersey is basically a remix of the home shirt. The diagonal stripe is still white, with the rest of the shirt being blue, with red trimmings around the sleeve, collar, and the outline of the stripe.

And yes. This time it definitely looks like a sash. I think it was Chris who said that Clint Dempsey looked like he’d won Miss Texas when these jerseys were announced back in February.

But if you can get past the sash thing, I think you can make a very strong case for this shirt. It mixes the three key colours of the American flag into the shirt, is similar enough yet completely different to the home shirt, and seems to balance nicely on that line between retro and modern.

That’s my take. What do you think of USA’s home and away shirts for World Cup 2010?