Top Ten Worst Club Kits Of 2009-2010

So after much back and forth, research, and more than a few six packs of Spaten, we are proud to present The Sports Optimator's first Ten Worst Club Kits list. These are in no particular order, so you can consider them all equally bad ideas.

Hannover 96 (All Three) - If this list wasn't in any particular order, Hannover 96 might just sit atop our list of worst jerseys.  Under Armour has managed a rare treble by skunking up all three uniforms with a ghastly mix of design elements. Under Armour's questionable design surprised me since they have managed to come up with some decent college football uniforms (Utah, Texas Tech), aside from the piping, but the wedges/slashes at the collar just don't work well on the pitch. Under Armour nearly landed two entries on the top ten (Omiya Ardija), but they are still second fiddle to Adidas... click clack? Maybe next year.

VfL Bochum (Home & Away) - Our first entry by Do You Football is probably their worst. I can't help think the home jersey was the result of laying down on a freshly painted white park bench. These are also frustrating because their 2008 kits were pretty decent.

Schalke 04 (Away Black) - This jersey leaves us shaking our heads, and I'd like to think the people of Gelsenkirchen are shaking theirs as well. Schalke 04 suffers from Adidas' 2009 assault on our eyes, and from what I can only call a collar explosion, which is sadly not unique to Schalke 04.

Chelsea (Home Blue) - As was pointed out on this site in an earlier post, one word describes what's wrong with this kit: zipper.  Let us, for a moment, set aside the odd external stitching look and the questionable placement of seams. What is the deal with the zipper?  We've watched a number of Chelsea and Bayern Munich games, and have yet to see a player pull the zipper down. Is it functional? Is it for show?  And, if so, who thought it was a good idea?

Puma Template - We came across a number of particularly foul jerseys, and - what do you know? - they were all based on the same Puma template. The proliferation of Puma logos has annoyed us, but the pattern around the neck and the accents are just too much to handle. You might be thinking "Well, it's not so bad." Well, take a look at what happened to Bordeaux Girondin's kits.  Do they come with sailor hats?  Also falling prey to Puma are AEK Athens, Lazio, and Brugge.

Bayern München (Home Red) - This is basically a red version of Chelsea's home blue, but they lose points for the wretched continuation of the team-name-above-the-numbers-player-name-below trend. The only thing worse than this is having a sponsor above or below the numbers. Bayern München's home kit saddens the Optimator, since their away and third have real collars and don't look so bad. Maybe they need "Bayern München" on the back so you don't confuse them with Chelsea.  The Bundesliga is dominating this list, and this is a perfect example of why.

Olympique Marseille (Away Blue) - This is a particularly odd jersey for our list because their home whites look pretty good. After I recovered from the seizure caused by this jersey, I noticed it looks like they didn't have enough material to complete it, so they used bits and pieces of left over fabric from other jerseys. There is just way too much going on here.  Just try not to stare directly at it.

Palermo (Away Black) - Did they find this at Juicy Couture?

Olympique Lyon (Black-Red) - This is very similar to the Marseille away jersey, in the sense that the Lyon home white nearly made our ten best list. There isn't much to say about this, aside from the fact that it's hideous. There is a good reason the gradient look is not used...ever. For those of you keeping count: Ligue 1 - (4); Bundesliga - (4).  Our last jersey will decide the winner!

Kaiserslautern (All Three) - And... the Bundesliga takes the title over Ligue 1, thanks to these particularly unctious entries by Do You Football.

Also Receiving Votes :

Omiya Ardija - Under Armour takes its assualt to the J-League with these Hannover 96'esque designs. How do you say "There is no god" in Japanese?

Adidas (All Designs) - This is a banner year for bad design at Adidas. Perhaps the pressure to create something new has forced their hand into farting out some bad ideas. The classic shoulder stripes that stop short, and in some cases are terminated by bizarre piping that makes them look like Napoleon, are just a horrible move. Add in Liverpool's black third kit and I'm practically sick to my stomach. Lets just go back to the trefoil and pretend the last few years never happened.

Football YouTubes of the Week

Coming on the heels of Palermo's header from mid-field, we get Stankovic's mid-field strike.  This video gets an extra nod for having the strangest background music ever for a sports clip. 

Not bad, but not as impressive as this Voetbal juggle-and-strike beauty.  Sort of Ronaldinho-esque. 

An old clip from better days in Berlin is the chip of the week.

This is promising.

Germany's World Cup players have been warned to expect to wear bullet-proof vests if they venture away from the team hotel at the 2010 finals in South Africa.

Dr. Maradona, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Take It Up the Arse

Instead of transcribing things, I will just link to this brilliant piece in the Guardian.

Maradona: He's the poster boy for not putting the GDP of Guatemala up your nose.  As my friend said, and I think he was being kind, it takes the skill of a dumbshit to fuck up that badly with that team.  To really grasp Maradona's accomplishments, one has to consider that this is a team that football pundits almost unanimously agree has to be in the World Cup, to make it a good one, because of their glut of talent (they are certainly more than just Messi), and yet it is not hyperbole to say that it took a miracle to beat the worst team in South America, and, AND! that that miracle hung by the tiniest threads up to the last second, as Peru got off a shot as time expired that hit the woodwork. 

How surreal must it be to play on that team?  Agüero knocking up Maradona's daughter in some quasi-incestuous pairing, the coach getting up at 3pm, sliding around the pitch on his belly after wins...  his thoughtful and nuanced post-match interviews (you have to be able to understand German to get anything out of this, but he tells his non-supporters, quite literally, to suck dicks)...  to say nothing of his absolutely astounding roster moves, in which he seems to ascend to a new level of crazy with each passing match.  Riquelme, the  Argentine with one of the most stunning World Cup goals I have ever seen, isn't even on the roster.  Neither is defender Walter Samuel, whose nickname is "The Wall."  I'm pretty sure if one of your defender's nickname is "The Wall," you want him on your team, even if it's only for the tangential Pink Floyd reference. 


Some fairness is in order, though.  The Sports Optimator has an official pro-post-match-penguin-slide stance.  As my friend said, "Look me in the eye and say it wouldn't bring a smile to your face to see Arséne Wenger do that.  I dare you."  I couldn't do it.  Although, if I ever did see it, after enjoying the moment, I would know that the Arsenal as I know it had just ceased to exist, because Wenger was clearly losing his mind.  

And, as long as I'm mocking his ineptitude and off-field shenanigans, and I am, I have to give him credit for not employing tarot cards when assembling his team, although, given that his choices have been even more astounding than Domenech's, he might want to get him on the phone. 

Unintentional Comedy in the Primera División

In preparation for The Sports Optimator's momentous release of the Ten Worst Current Kits, we decided to release a quick sampling of the Primera División's jerseys, because, as I said, do they even count? I mean, sheeeeit, we'd have to expand the rankings by about 20 or so. 

Cases in point:

Atlante:

 Aside from the weird single stripe, I count six logos on here.

Atlas:

Here we can see the migration of logos onto the sleeves, Nascar-style.  Which is to prepare you for...

Joma Indios:

Holy shit.  Look me in the eye and tell me Jimmy Johnson hasn't worn this.  

Jagueres:

Holy shit!  See above comment times 10!  When the players give post-game interviews, do they have stickers plastered all over their faces?

Monterrey:

This is actually the best jersey, by far, but that's not saying much.  The stripe within a stripe is questionable, but it gets included here because of its unintentionally hilarious sponsor.  América has similar problems, although they should be commended, too, for having something resembling a recognizable color scheme.  Small mercies.  This funny sponsor has nothing, however, on a Peruvian club called, and I am not making this up, Deportivo Wanka.  You're welcome. 

Morelia:

Oh my stars.  My head is swimming with free associations: Ronald McDonald, the Ronald McDonald House, retards.  Look, making fun of retards isn't very nice, and you shouldn't do it, but did retards design this?  My eyeballs are scarring over spontaneously.

And, finally, the design equivalent of "pull my finger," Necaxa:

Cal Enjoys Being Wildly Overrated For Next 12-24 Hours

The fact that Cal is currently ranked, or was ever ranked, is shocking to me. Cal has managed to go from a dark horse Pac-10 contender to a trendy Rose Bowl pick, and then drop a whopping 18 places (depending on what poll you read) to unranked for week 6. I would love to do some research and figure out if any team in history that shouldn't have been ranked in the first place managed to be so overrated.

The media needs to form some kind of common sense panel to review the rankings each week. I am convinced this is necessary because all of the articles I've read about Cal seem to boil down to "They have all the talent to win the Pac-10 or make a BCS title run... if Kevin Riley plays well." If Cal's receivers were made up of 12" high and 7'-0" tall players Kevin Riley would be the best QB in all of football, but sadly they are unable to catch balls at their feet or 3' over their heads. The "BCS Buster" era has also encouraged wild rankings swings based on pre-season rankings (see; Houston, Boise St.), I'll delve into that later especially if we are in for a repeat of the Alabama-Utah debacle.

Each week has exposed all of the issues people managed to gloss over in the pre-season; Average-at-best QB, average WR corp prone to dropped passes with no deep threat, and a young (confused, poor tackling, and poor pass coverage) LB unit in a system that relies on their "depth" to make plays on defense. In the past two weeks Cal has been torched by skilled TE's, quick hitch routes, and off tackle runs that are surprisingly effective when you rely on tackling by the ankles.



I am not looking forward to being proven right over the rest of the season. I may actually throw up on the poor people sitting in front of me if we go from #6 to losing to stanfurd, making me 0-3 this year against insufferable fans (stay classy Eugene) and 0-3 against horrible bands if/when we lose to fUCLA. I have a bad feeling the above image (ill-advised pass to a offensive lineman resulting in a penalty and wild cheering) will sum up the Cal season, and be its most memorable moment.