Now that the regular season has ended, it’s time to delve into one of the most important aspects of soccer fandom: Judging Kits.
We’ve been fortunate as Austin FC fans that our kits have been really strong overall, the VerdeBlack kits have a distinctive color and pattern that is easily recognizable and has a clear branding behind it.
Last year’s white kits were….white Adidas kits. It’s tough to judge them when Adidas, a small company that is new to soccer, clearly hadn’t staffed up enough designers to come up with something original for each and every MLS Club. Let’s hope their future growth can help them come up with something new and exciting in the future.
This season’s Mint kits were a surprising hit once everyone got to see them in person, and as the #HBMFC folks can tell you, those shorts do wonders for how the boys look.
As always, the less said about the yearly PrimeBlue kits the better, they’re unnecessary, ugly, and are clearly cursed because Austin FC has never won while wearing them.
Even more important than how the kits look, it’s how the boys perform in the kits and we have been keeping track all season of the performances:
| Kit Color | Record (W-L-T, GD) |
| VerdeBlack | 10-5-5, +12 |
| Sentimiento | 6-4-3, +7 |
| Prime Blue | 0-1-0, -3 |
We also tracked Austin FC’s record based on the Keeper Kit
| Kit Color | Record (W-L-T, GD) |
| Verde | 1-0-0, +5 |
| Magenta | 0-1-1, -1 |
| Blue | 5-5-2, +6 |
| Red | 8-4-3, +3 |
| Grey | 2-0-2, +3 |
Most Importantly, we tracked Austin’s record based on what shirt color Josh Wolff wore:
| Shirt Color | Record (W-L-T, GD) |
| Verde | 11-7-4, +14 |
| Blue | 0-1-0, -1 |
| Sea Foam | 5-1-2, +6 |
| Black (training top) | 0-1-0, -3 |
This is important, there’s a winner take all match on Sunday against a team that knows how to go into a hostile environment and win a playoff game against a higher ranked opponent.
We at the False Nine are fairly certain Wolff keeps track of the luck behind what shirt he wears, it’s the only explanation for him wearing Verde and Sea Foam so much this season. He’s flipped the stats compared 2021, where he only wore Verde ~10% of matches and has worn Verde or Sea Foam (the luckiest colors) for more than 90% of matches this season.
Based on these numbers, we all need to inform the players that for Sunday we need to be wearing the VerdeBlack kits and Stuver needs to be in the Red Keeper kit, anything else would be a failure to appease the soccer gods and invite their wrath.