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Nike’s release of the new U.S. third kits has been roundly criticized. It looks like every other red international jersey in the world, and it almost seems like Nike, knowing this, tried to sneak the release by U.S. fans by officially releasing them around midnight on Valentine’s Day. Sure, the kits are red, and...Valentine’s Day equals red? Sure. Yeah. They still released it at midnight. It feels shady.
Roses are red
— U.S. Soccer (@ussoccer) February 15, 2017
Violets are blue
We dropped a red jersey
We hope to see it on you pic.twitter.com/aPPfitJ5R6
I can just imagine intrepid interns hammering out possible Valentine’s Day poems to help brand the release of this shirt. Imagine the joy of being selected as the winning poem, years of futility and high school candygrams washing away in an instant as this stanza rose above the rest and flew helter-skelter into the Twitterverse. Four for you Glen Coco. You go Glen Coco.
Unfortunately for U.S. Soccer and Nike, many U.S. fans were feeling just as jazzed about this holiday season.
@ussoccer
— Lucas (@LucasFacemire) February 15, 2017
Roses are red
Violets are blue
Who worries about a jersey
When your team plays like poo
@ussoccer
— Ben Meaders (@QuesoCaliente) February 15, 2017
Portugal's red
Now we are too
Nike's designers
Should all get the boot
.@ussoccer
— Biggy (@biggySF) February 15, 2017
Roses are red
These jerseys suck
These jerseys suck
These jerseys suck
Roses are red
— Mark Yesilevskiy (@MarkWhyy) February 15, 2017
Violets are blue
This kit is boring
Let's get a redo https://t.co/hroCyEnjxh
@MarkWhyy roses are red. Violets are red. Everything is red. All three kits are terrible.
— Fr. Daniel Stroud (@danielstroud) February 15, 2017
And my own personal contribution:
Roses are red
— Adam W Snavely (@Snaves) February 15, 2017
The rest will not rhyme
Possibly don't try to sell us Portugal jerseys https://t.co/065f4FW7ut
In all fairness, the new jerseys aren’t really that bad. They suffer from a severe lack of imagination and template-fatigue, but at least the colors here make some sort of sense. In a vacuum, they’re more or less fine. Really. They’re ok.
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And at the very least, they’ve given us a good meme to riff on for a little while. If you want to join in on being petty for the holiday, drop your best Valentine’s Day poem to Nike in the comments below and we can all laugh together to prevent ourselves from crying.