A host of stars from David Beckham to Stephen Gerrard and Zlatan Ibrahimovic have made Los Angeles Galaxy’s kits some of the most instantly recognisable on Planet Football.
Since their inception as founding members of MLS in 1996, LA Galaxy have gone on to become the most successful club in the league’s history.
Whilst known to football supporters outside of the USA as a curiosity prior to his move stateside, the arrival of David Beckham in 2007 helped to elevate the league’s credibility and fast-tracked the development of a global audience for Major League Soccer.
Although it would still take time for European fans to take soccer in the States seriously, LA Galaxy were now the most famous footballing side since the days of the New York Cosmos.
To coincide with the arrival of Beckham’s undoubted star quality, the then Galaxy general manager Alexi Lalas set about updating the club’s identity.
Out went the green, black and gold of Galaxy’s original strips, in came the much cleaner all-white home kit that has come to be associated with the franchise.
As well as the heavenly kit, a brand new club logo featuring what astronomical experts will tell you is a quasar (definitely not a star) was introduced.
The real star feature of the Galaxy’s shirts has been the regular appearance of a navy blue and gold diagonal sash from left shoulder to right hip. A look that was perhaps most beautifully rendered for the 2014 MLS Cup winning season.
The interstellar shirt we can show you is a non-Beckham era, player-issue version, complete with five stars above the quasar to represent LA Galaxy’s five MLS Cup titles, alongside and further 50 stars on the players’ sleeves.
At this time, MLS clubs wore their flags on their sleeves and the star spangled banner’s presence on the white Adidas shirts made Galaxy’s stars look out of this world and a little like astronauts.
This particular shirt’s place as a club classic was cemented on December 7th 2014 in front of 27,000 fans at the Galaxy’s StubHub Center home in Carson, Los Angeles, when a 2-1 victory over New England Revolution meant Bruce Arena’s men became the first team to complete 5 MLS Cup wins.
David Beckham had long since retired by the time Robbie Keane scored the decisive goal in extra-time to gift the Galaxy their 5th MLS crown and earn that 5th star.
The game is also remembered for being all-time MLS highest goalscorer Landon Donovan’s last match before the first of his retirements.
Proceeding Galaxy kits have all omitted the 5 stars, preferring just one golden celestial body to represent the 5 wins.
As Galaxy prepare to challenge for that 6th MLS Cup title, previews of their 2019 Adidas away kit hint towards a return to the famous five star look for the upcoming campaign.
We were delighted when friend of Sartorial.Soccer and football shirt enthusiast Sal Ortiz contacted us to nominate this LA Galaxy shirt as a Club Classic and we thank him for all the background details and pictures of the shirt he gave us.
If you have a story on a shirt you think we should cover then please let us know in the comments section below!
Sartorial Soccer 