Major League Soccer’s 31st season is approaching, and fans across the league are busy providing exciting content. Responsible for roster construction, relevance and playoff potential. Of course, there are also kits.
Sometimes it seems that fans around the world have nothing more interesting than discussing jerseys and jersey culture. Backers, even those with absolutely no fashion sense to speak of, began offering terms usually reserved for launch-day runway shows.
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In that spirit, I, a guy who can barely dress myself, tried to assemble what I consider to be the five most interesting MLS jerseys for the 2026 season—for better or worse.
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San Jose’s Old and New Looks
San Jose’s “Dead Kit” pays homage to one of the most influential bands in modern music, the legendary Bay Area band the Grateful Dead. The colorful tie-dye design is complemented by the Dead’s logo and the band’s wordmark on the back of the collar.
The design evokes memories of the Grateful Dead’s previous foray into sports design: their work with the Lithuanian men’s basketball team at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona. The cash-strapped team ended up being largely funded by the Dead and doing some Dead-themed tie-dye warm-ups in return, eventually winning the bronze medal.
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San Jose’s new look could also be read as a completely unintentional return to another iconic American soccer look, the infamous Cowboys jersey worn by the U.S. national team at the 1994 World Cup. Designed by Peter Moore, who also designed the first Air Jordan shoe, this jersey has long been considered one of the most bizarre jerseys in the history of the sport, but it’s almost tie-dyed. Moore prefers denim, but his partner, Nike executive Rob Strasser, is a big advocate of tie-dye. Fortunately he didn’t win. As former U.S. National Team legend Marcelo Balboa told me a few years ago: “None of us would have gone on the field in that uniform. I’m not even kidding. That would have sparked a protest and a half.”
Twenty years later, things have changed. The U.S. National Team’s own 2024 away jersey – dubbed the “USA Icon Jersey” – looks a lot like tie-dye. Now, in 2026, Quake is bringing Bay Area flower power to the forefront.
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printing error
This year, several MLS clubs have incorporated graphic prints into their jerseys. The Houston Dynamo jersey features a satellite photo of the city in an attempt to evoke a connection to the space program, one of the city’s symbols. The New York Red Bulls use some sort of Slim Goodbody graphic on their Rooted jerseys. They tried to pay homage to the club’s “roots”, but the result was a visible circular system.
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Perhaps no one has taken graphic graphics further this year than the Philadelphia Union. Ahead of the nation’s 50th anniversary, the league unveiled the 1776 uniforms to pay tribute to the city’s important role in American history. It’s decorated with all kinds of stuff: the Declaration of Independence, a portrait of Benjamin Franklin, Independence Hall, and the American flag. If that’s not enough, it also features the iconic “Join or Die” colonial snake and the actual number 1776, lest you forget their purpose here.
Design is subjective, but this thing looks terrible. Modern football jerseys are usually worn by fans in the streets rather than players on the pitch, and this one is 100% streetwear. That remains to be seen, but I doubt this kit will look bad in motion.
Philadelphia, being the birthplace of America, somewhat dictates that they make a 1776 jersey, but they missed the boat here.
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Print correctly
Unsurprisingly, perhaps the only team to sport an all-over print this year is Los Angeles Football Club. Year after year, they continue to impress.
Part of that can be attributed to the color of the club, with the black-and-gold finish looking timeless in almost any application. This year’s jersey – dubbed the 2026 home kit by LAFC’s advertising wizards – is no exception, incorporating Los Angeles’ rich Art Deco heritage. The club tried something similar in 2022, but this iteration buried their previous attempts to evoke classic Hollywood glamor.
Like all other MLS jerseys this year (except Montreal’s, mysteriously), the LAFC jerseys feature a unique gimmick: both the Adidas logo and the club crest themselves are raster holograms. If you’re not familiar with this phrase, think of those “animated” baseball cards you’ve seen before, where the photo changes depending on the angle of the card. Major League Soccer (MLS) clubs have stars on their crests, while Canadian clubs have leaves. It’s a cool gimmick, albeit a pointless one.
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Another musical collaboration
MLS has a rapidly growing history of bringing music and kit design together.
Seattle, one might say, invented In 2021, they launched a music pairing kit that pays homage to legendary guitarist Jimi Hendrix. A few years later, Nashville released its own Man in Black kit, a tribute to country music icon Johnny Cash. DC United launched its own attempt at a Soul Kit last year, ostensibly an homage to D.C.’s Go-Go scene, while San Jose also debuted the aforementioned Dead Kit this year.
St. Louis City SC are giving it their own try with their Tina Turner kit. The R&B/soul legend was born in Memphis and spent her formative years in St. Louis. The team says this is the first time Adidas has worked with a female artist to design professional jerseys, and they seem to have done a good enough job of incorporating Turner’s energy into the jerseys.
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The shimmering gold print is reminiscent of the wild, flamboyant looks Turner wore early in her career, recalling her star-making performance on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1970. The jersey features her signature and silhouette. I don’t know what this theme will look like with St. Louis defensive midfielder Chris Durkin, but I’d love to know.
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DC yawn
Over the years, MLS has gotten better at moving away from so-called “clean” designs, a lazy process that resulted in a glut of white T-shirts season after season. Still, some teams persisted. Colorado, Vancouver and Charlotte have all made calls this year.
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Perhaps no entrant has a more bland look than DC United’s 2026 jerseys, which they’re calling the “black and red jerseys” in case you forgot what colors they are. This lack of effort borders on the ridiculous and is reflected in the design brief provided by the club to accompany the jersey. In a world of lengthy, over-the-top, almost absurdly designed explainers, DC’s is about the length of a haiku and somehow even less.
“Black and red are the pulse of D.C. United, and this kit reminds us who we play for when we take the field…the fans, future stars, legends and the next generation.”
United’s early kits are some of the best in league history, and they’ve had some recent hits, including the long-awaited Sakura kit. The effort feels entirely unambitious — perfect for a club that hasn’t made the playoffs in nearly a decade.
