MLS newcomers Nashville SC revealed their electric yellow home kit this weekend, and whilst Adidas’ design is perfectly smart, functional and not exactly off-key; we’d dearly love to have seen a more expressive debut offering in-tune with the musical heritage of the Tennessee city.
When the Music City won the right to host MLS’ 26th franchise, the new club took on the name and colours of the existing USL Championship side, who themselves only began playing in 2018.
For Nashville’s fans, who’s team start the season with a tricky home fixture against Atlanta United on 29th February; the unveiling of their new uniform was an exciting event in the young club’s history.
The vibrant “forever gold” and “acoustic blue” colour scheme brings a flash of fluorescent football to MLS, but there are those who say the combination is too close to the established, yellow and black of Columbus Crew.
No room for a cover version then?
Meanwhile, Nashville’s crest riffs on the city’s reputation as the home of country music with a capital “N” set in an octagon amidst several blue bars representing sound waves and vibrations.
Unfortunately that’s where the musical influence ends.
Amid the lavish ceremonies, Adidas’ league-wide MLS deal is starting to draw critique from fans yearning for uniforms, well, a little less uniform.
We’re at the point of the year where the reveal of kits for the forthcoming MLS season usually represents the most exciting news in the world of football design.
In 2018, Adidas’ league-wide deal treated North American fans to some of the very best designs on Planet Football.
However, last year’s proliferation of plain white templated away jerseys and the vast differences between replica and authentic versions of shirts, left many MLS fans complaining that their team were wearing “dialled-in” designs.
We’d have loved to have seen Adidas look to the city’s Country Music Hall of Fame, The Grand Ole Opry or even the Johnny Cash Museum and woven a few musical notes and tones into Nashville’s sporting fabric as Puma did for this season’s Haçienda inspired Manchester City away kit.
We’re not asking for rhinestones here.
We can hum along to this one, it’s perfectly pleasant, but for a club looking to cement a new identity in the sporting culture of Tennessee, we feel Nashville SC’s debut home kit could and should have been an instant hit.
This just feels . . . a little . . . middle of the road.
Sartorial Soccer 