MLS Jerseys: Thank God for Portland

Portland Timbers unveiled their first ever MLS kits in fashion earlier this afternoon, and......WOW!!!  Finally, we are starting to see some quality MLS kits.  The team walked out of a Boeing airplane in the new garb onto a runway in an empty Portland airplane hangar.  Here's a look and description of the home kit:

The home jersey features the Timber green with a two-tone jersey.  The two shades of green are cross-linked with chevrons.  The back neck ID tag is an ax and there is a "No Pity in the Rose City" JockTag.  The jersey has white sleeves and features Alaska Airlines as the sponsor.  Now for the surprise of the afternoon, the away kit:

 

Finally, somebody in MLS has the balls to do a flashy away jersey and not the standard white or whatever.  This Rose City Red jersey features a two-tone red pattern, crosslinked by rose thorns.  The back neck ID is "Rose City."  What I like best is the Rose City badge on the left and the Timbers crest has been "redded" out.  You stay classy, Portland.

Even though the adidas monopoly is somewhat bittersweet (league uniformity looks little league-ish, yet adidas is one of the best and it provides stability), adidas seems to be improving.  Houston's new jersey is bizarre, yes, but certainly detailed.  Also, Real Salt Lake introduced their "Victory Yellow" jerseys last year, as did Seattle Sounders FC with their "Electricity Green."  Even Columbus's pin-striped away jersey, Seattle's new black kits, and Toronto's embossed maple leaf is a step up in class.  Now their just needs to be more diversity in the color scheme and style.  The home kit is for the year-after-year monotony.  Home kits symbolize the club and tradition, the away kits symbolize the year.  Look at teams like Barcelona and Chelsea.  Just because Barca wears pink one year doesn't make people forget the Catalan stripes.  Or just because Chelsea wears highlighter jerseys doesn't erase their heritage as the Blues.  It just makes fans remember certain seasons.  Not to mention it would increase sales because fans would jump on the away jerseys' limited availability.  Why would I ever bye an away D.C. United (my team) jersey? 1- they are SOOOO plain, and 2- it's going to be the same damn thing next year.

So I took it upon myself to make some mock away kits.  Now, it was done on Paint so obviously some of them suck.  And some of them are ugly, but that just means that I don't care about that club.  But there are some stylistic elements that I think are good that MLS doesn't utilize.  For some of the sponsors I just found some major corps headquartered in that city. For the Chivas USA kit, the tribute is obviously to Mexico.  for the Rapids jersey, a tribute is paid to the old Rapids color scheme.  For the Crew jersey, I added a little buckeye spirit.  For DC, I really like the maroon (they wore won once in memory of the VT shootings) with the white pin-stripes.  For FC Dallas, I don't know but someone had to be brown.  For Houston, I always thought a Halloween kit would look nice, especially with the 'V.'  For Sporting KC, I think pink just sums that club up and I added the non-MLS sash to the picture.  I'm quite proud of the Revolution one; I think gold would look really good with the blacked out crest.  For the Earthquakes, I thought the aqua-y colors were very "bay."  The purple of the Sounders alludes to some of their older USL kits.  The TFC kit is a representation of the Ontario flag, as is the weird Whitecaps one with British Columbia.  Check it out: