Nike gives US Soccer a red version of what multiple teams already had

Late last night on Valentine’s Day, US Soccer got into the spirit of the holiday and officially unveiled what we’ve seen for a while now, and that’s their new all-read third kits. The World Cup Champion Women’s National Team will debut the kit beginning on March 1st, and we’ll see the Men wear it for a World Cup Qualifier later in march.

The good news is that this is definitely an improvement over their black kits with the alternating blue-and-red sleeves. Really, almost anything would be better than that. The bad news is that even though this kit is new to US Soccer, it’s old to fans of England, Portugal, and Paris Saint-Germain.

Now, the template isn’t that bad, but the fact that Nike has basically given at least four different high-profile teams the same exact design and color scheme for their kits is the peak of laziness when it comes to kit design. It’s very nearly the same exact shade of red for every team, and there are only minor tweaks on the color of the striping based on whatever color scheme the team wearing the kit is currently deploying. The only major changes come in the crest, but that’s inconsequential when viewing from a distance.

If this was a stand-alone kit, then there wouldn’t be too many complaints about what US Soccer will be wearing. However, due to Nike getting extremely lazy with their kit design, this is an uninspiring look and a cynical cash-grab at best. That’s just my opinion, though. What do you all think of this “new” kit for US Soccer?