The Good, The Bad, The WTF

It is no stretch to say that the North American Soccer League had an odd history. For every relatively successful franchise like the New York Cosmos, there were numerous failures. Littered among these failures are names such as Rochester Lancers, Philadelphia Atoms, San Diego Jaws and Team America (fuck yeah!). Not all of these failures have receded from the public mind, though. There is a team that played one season, finished last in its conference and folded that is still remembered for what may be the worst uniform of all time. That team is the Caribous of Colorado.

Now, If you have ever done any kind of search on ugly uniforms, no matter what the sport, this shirt should definitely have come up.
If anyone ever asks you why soccer never caught on in the US after Best, Pele and Beckenbauer came over, all you have to do is show them this image. Colorado tried to make their fans think they were going to a goddamn rodeo. My question is, how the fuck were the players not too embarrassed to take the pitch in these monstrosities? I guess that sometimes, a paycheck is a paycheck, and you just go collect it.

What about safety issues with that (ugh) fringe? When I was playing youth soccer at about this time, you couldn't have so much as a string friendship bracelet on for fear of injuring yourself, your opponent, the mascot, overhead birds or anything else within a five mile radius. Here we have fringe which, when applied liberally to your opponents face, could cause them to choke and die! It's ridiculous, I tell ya. I don't think it's any surprise that this is also the generation that marketed Bag o' Glass as a kid's toy.

Before I go, I would like to say, that I do like the image of the buck carrying the soccer ball in his antlers. Though, I must say that either that's a small deer or a huge ball. Did that have something to do with the altitude of playing in Colorado? Oh, and here is the only 'net shot of these shirts in action, in a game against the Portland Timbers (no MLS for you!).

images courtesy premiershirts.net and timbersfanspage.com