Toronto Seeing Red

I hammered on my jersey source again. He has yet to send me the entire set of jerseys for 2007. "They are all the same," he says. He did verify that the Toronto images floating around a couple locations on the internet are accurate.

I have previously described the Toronto uniforms to you before. The origional source of the images is Adam H, he sent them to me to post.

Hunt Divesting and Beckham Rule

Lamar Hunt has done a great deal for soccer in this country and should be thanked for all his contributions. The most recent of which is the year long search for a local owner in Kansas City to keep the Wizards there instead of letting them go to Philadelphia.

Hunt has discreetly let it be known in the right power circles that he is looking to sell one of his two remaining teams: Columbus Crew and FC Dallas. Which one is unclear at this point and even Hunt may not know which one he will move.

So what does that have to do with the so called "Beckham rule?" Simple, Hunt (or HSG) is the one who vetoed the Beckham rule at last year's Board of Governors meetings.

Now there is renewed discussion that the Beckham rule may be close to implementation. If the Beckham rule gets passed by the Governors you can rest assured it was because of two things. One, the Governors agreed to a specific dollar limitation that Hunt could sign off on; and two, Hunt has reduced his power on the Board by selling Kansas City and will reduce it even more with the sale of one of his two remaining teams.

And Your Rapids Kits

I did my best begging and groveling to get the images of the new Rapids kits out of my jersey contact. Since I have already described them I will not take too much of your time here.



One small point of clarification since it was requested of me, the badge clearly has a 96 on it and not an FC or SC.

I am still working on getting the entire league set of uniforms even though they are all essentially the same.

Kit Nerd is on the Case!

So, what's the word on the 2007 MLS jerseys?

The majority of the MLS teams are remaining the same, aside from the slight tweaks here and there. Only two jerseys really need to be discussed: Toronto FC and Colorado Rapids.

Toronto FC is going to wear a home jersey of solid red with a light gray and onyx accent colors and white shorts. The road kit will be light gray with red and onyx as accents and red shorts.

The Colorado Rapids new logo and colors you have seen in the image I previously posted. But I am sure there are some of you antsy about the kits. The home jersey is going to be burgundy (maroon?, claret?) with sky blue accents. Colorado, like Toronto, is also going with white shorts at home. The away uniform for the rapids will be a sky blue shirt/shorts with the burgundy (maroon) as the accent color.

Those of you with fears of the LA Galaxy changing colors to yellow/blue, quit worrying. The Galaxy are essentially the same, as is the rest of the league.

Rocky Mountain High

I just got my hands on the new Colorado Rapids logo (right). Kroenke is re-branding the colors at the same time as the logo in honor of the new stadium.

You can tell from the logo the new colors will essentially be maroon and baby blue, although some would call it gray or blue/gray. Or if you prefer your soccer lingo in Euro style "claret and blue" would I suppose be the closest approximation.

Kroenke and company also discussed renaming the team Colorado Arsenal due to the fact the new stadium is located on a old weapons range, but thankfully have chosen to pass on that idea.

MoJo Movin

Here's a quick one for... Everyone who pays even the least bit of attention to soccer in the United States knew That Bruce Arena was going to be coaching the Red Bulls sooner rather than later. Even Mo Johnson knew it.

So what was the final straw that caused NYRB to pull the trigger and fire Mo early? Why did Red Bull can Mo in June instead of waiting till Bruce was ready?

Cause Mo set up an interview with FC Toronto.

That's right, Red Bull fired Mo cause he read the same writing on the wall you did and moved to cover his bets. They did NOT fire him for performance, or because Bruce was ready to go, but rather because Mo tried to protect his future.

Well, Hello Again...

From time to time there are reasons why I vanish, some of them I am sure you can imagine, and a few you probably can't. In any case, I will make it back eventually and start posting again. So I'm back with a little something that's been bugging me of late...

A couple of week's ago there was an article where it was mentioned that Chivas USA currently has a roster that puts the team way past the salary cap. Obviously that raises many questions. At first blush it made me think that maybe CUSA was getting away with something because of their ownership situation.

After a little research, I found that Chivas USA is well over because "Paco" Palencia is so far ahead as the league's top wage earner. Yet by league rule he only counts as the max, just like Freddie, Landon, Eddie, etc. So Chivas USA, or any other team for that matter, is not above the cap. At the same time, if you were to count the highest salary on the other teams as their real number (and not cap it as league rules dictate), then most teams would also be over the cap.

Also, saying CUSA was able to do something "in a manner no other team was able to" would be a misstatement of epic proportions. Any help they may be receiving this year pales in comparison to the help that the Galaxy, United, and especially the MetroStars have gotten in past years.

All of this leads me to two thoughts. One, it surely won't be that much longer until MLS finds a way to enact some version of the much talked about "Beckham Rule". In fact the Beckham to MLS rumor mill has heated up again with his recent benching and a couple typical reports in Europe that have once again dusted off the old quotes about the US.

Two, how much longer before we are all screaming about the-artist-formally-known-as-Metro and whatever method Red Bull is using to circumvent the same MLS cap and stacking a (finally) great team in New York?