US football star Christian Pulisic voiced his confusion after struggling to differentiate teammates from opposing Belgian players during a recent friendly, attributing the issue to clashing kit designs.
Following Saturday’s 5-2 defeat, Pulisic stated, “That can’t happen. It was a bit strange.”
The US team had unveiled new Nike jerseys featuring red and white horizontal stripes, intended as an homage to their 1994 World Cup attire. Belgium, conversely, wore new Adidas away kits in a light ‘Frozen Blue’ with pink and black trim, a design paying tribute to surrealist artist René Magritte.
“It definitely was a little bit difficult whenever you do like a quick glance to tell which was which. It was almost like a 50-50 thing,” American midfielder Weston McKennie said. “So you definitely have to maybe take a little more time on the ball before you made a decision or play one touch to a player.”
Both teams exchanged uniform plans well ahead of the match, according to the U.S. Soccer Federation, and the outfits were cleared before the game by the match officials.
Belgium’s home jersey in a solid red while the U.S.’s other is dark blue with a subtle star pattern and red trim, which it plans to wear for Tuesday’s friendly against Portugal.
While the flawed fashions became apparent during the first half, neither team had different sets of jerseys on site they could switch to at the break.
Decisions could depend on shorts — the U.S. wore blue and Belgium white. The Americans had white socks and the Belgians blue.
Players hadn’t been concerned about the game’s sartorial aspects.
“I didn’t know until we took off the pre-match, whatever, shirts and then saw it and I was like — everyone was a bit shocked,” Pulisic said. “A lot of times you get the ball, you look up, you can’t really lock in on something. You only can base it off the color of the shirt. That’s how it works. And when it’s very similar, it’s difficult.”
