When done right a team's jersey can bring pride and a flash of fashion to the supporters in the stands and fans watching at home on TV. However designers can sometimes get a little overambitious. A clashing color scheme, dumb fashion trend, having a shirt sponsor that sounds like a support group for cross-dressers... all of these can spell doom for your favorite team's uniform. Here are the worst of the worst from the past year:

10. FC Nuremberg Home Kit

The fastest route to destroy sales of your team’s uniform: a shirt sponsorship that conjures up images of she-males. Last season FC Nuremberg decided its kits would look better with the words Mister*Lady across the chest.

What is a Mister*Lady? According to their website it’s a German fashion company that specializes in, “Casual casual, cool jeans and trendy accessories.” Coincidentally, FC Nuremberg was relegated from the Bundesliga in May and ditched the Mister*Lady sponsorship.

Maybe Dennis Rodman should have been their mascot?

 

 

9. Liverpool Euro Kit

 

Liverpool have some of the best home and away kits this year, however their alternate “euro kit” is one of the most uninspired uniforms to ever take the field. The shirt features a drab green look, a black collar and …well that’s actually it. There’s nothing else. 

My guess is somewhere in the process Adidas accidentally printed Liverpool’s crest on a bush-league team’s uniform and nobody figured it out until it was too late.

If you’re unfortunate enough to catch Liverpool wearing these, don’t be surprised if they look like floating heads hovering over the green pitch.

8. Derby County Away Kit

So I going to assume somebody accidentally left a highlighter in the washer and decided, “sweet, let’s make that our new away jersey.”

Although Chelsea and Everton were also guilty of the neon yellow trend, Derby County accomplished the impossible feat of doing it ten-times worse.

How did they accomplish this? They assumed the best way to thank Bombardier for their new sponsorship deal was by putting their logo in white text, making it completely unreadable.

7. FC Barcelona Home Kit

After being pressured by Nike, Barcelona’s iconic maroon and blue-striped kits have been ditched in favor of a two-toned shirt divided directly down the center. Not only does this spit in the face of tradition while simultaneously looking awful, the jerseys could also lead confusion on the field.

Think about it… you’re a striker racing down the field and look left: it looks like your winger’s wearing a blue jersey. Then you look right and your other winger is in maroon.

Then again bad decisions aren’t surprising from a club that decided to kick Ronaldinho to the curb two years after winning the UEFA Cup.

6.Chivas Home Kit

Another team that threw tradition out the window, Chivas has swapped their red and white vertical stripes for some sort of warped sunrays intended to direct attention to the Bimbo Bakeries sponsorship on their chest. The kit also features navy blue shoulder pads and back, making players appear like they’re on an entirely different team from behind.

As futuristic and cool as these jerseys may initially look, ten years from now they’ll probably seem as bad as these:

5. Bolton Wanderers Home Kit

Who makes Bolton’s kit? According to their jersey Reebok. Who sponsors Bolton? Well if you look six inches lower… Reebok. The Wanderers jersey looses points for redundancy but that’s not all. This year's jersey features some weird black man-bra across the top that looks it was lifted from the set of "Aeon Flux".

4.Juventus Away Kit

Usually the color gold is associated with winning, trophies, success… etc. So if you’re a team that hasn’t won a major trophy in five years gold is probably the last color you’d choose for your kits.

Errr... well, not if you’re Juventus. The Italian giants have deicide to sport shiny gold away jerseys for the 2008-2009 campaign.

…and no, winning the Serie-B title doesn’t count.

3. Shimizu S-Pulse Home & Away Kits

I’m not really sure what’s going on here but it looks like the Shimizu S-Pulse of Japan’s J-League designed their away jersey on the off chance the team plane crashes in North Korea during a snow storm.

For some reason they felt compelled to use winter camouflage on the kit’s torso and just in case they get lost… hey look there’s a handy map on the shoulder.

Even worse are their home jerseys which look like somebody binged on circus peanuts and Tang then vomited down the front of their shirt.

2. Necaxa Home Kit

It really doesn’t matter what your kit looks like… if you have sponsors covering up every square-inch. A lot of Central and South American clubs are guilty of shilling out every spare corner of their uniform for ad space. Necaxa of Mexico’s Primera División take it one step further papering their shorts and even socks with sponsors.

Maybe the designers of the jersey took cues from the Yellow pages.

1. New York Red Bulls Home Kit

Formerly the MetroStars, the team was bought out and then re-branded the Red Bulls after the stroke-inducing energy drink.

Not only is the team name and logo completely dumb, their jersey is about as boring as a lecture on advanced knitting. The team’s crest, which features the Red Bull logo, is duplicated and then stretched across the plain white jersey and BAM! You have the New York Red Bulls’ kit.

Two years ago the team didn’t have a sponsorship… now they are a sponsorship. And if you weren’t sick of Red Bull enough, next season the team moves into their new stadium, Red Bull Arena.

Everybody and their mother seem to be speculating about David Robert Joseph Beckham’s loan to AC Milan in January. Is he betraying Galaxy fans? Is he leaving Major League Soccer for good? Is Posh Spice pulling strings behind the scenes?

There are plenty of assumptions about what the midfielder’s motives are without looking at the big picture: This move is great for the MLS.

When he leaves in January, the team, the league and Beckham are going to get a healthy dose of needed exposure during the MLS off-season, and the best part is that the Galaxy are getting paid for it.

Throwing Becks in the middle of the AC Milan roster will make him relevant again, suiting up next to the likes of Kaka, Ronaldinho and Maldini. Instead of falling into obscurity for the next six months he’ll be back in the papers, on the screen and, maybe if he’s lucky, on the pitch.

The worry among many commentators is that Beckham’s would betray Galaxy fans by playing for a different team. However fans here in the United States see it differently.

A few years ago I was on the set of what was Fox Football Friday talking to Keith Costigan and he was perplexed at how I could be a fan of Liverpool and wear a Thierry Henry Arsenal jersey. He commented that in England I couldn’t get away with that. 

That’s fundamental difference between sports fans in the United States and fans in abroad. As much as we love our favorite team and as passionate as we might be, it’s perfectly normal for us back other players and other clubs on the side.

Beckham’s loan to AC Milan will have little effect on Galaxy fans. Hell, you could probably sell the red and black Rossoneri jerseys at the Home Depot Center next season.

The other fear, that he's going leave the MLS and never comeback, is unfounded. Beckham has played-out every contract he’s signed and it’s highly unlikely that he would decide to spurn his gigantic performance-based contract with the Galaxy.

In fact "performance" is probably the main force that will drive Beckham back to the MLS next spring; in his career he has won the league title with every team he has been under contract with and, last-time I checked, he still has some work to do with the Galaxy.

Soccer commentators seem to have short memories. It was a little over year ago that, after being told he wouldn’t be re-signed at Real Madrid and then subsequently benched. Beckham refused to stop training. Eventually he worked his way back on the field and helped push Real to the La Liga title. That doesn’t sound like someone who would cash-out after an unsuccessful season and a half in LA.

I’m no Beckham fan, but the relentless bashing he takes in the press is pretty ridiculous. His track record, passion and contract all point to him returning to the Galaxy, but all you hear are the arguments about him wanting to sell jerseys and pursue his wife’s fashion interests.

Luckily for all the naysayers, come next year when a fit and in-form Beckham returns to the Galaxy, all the attention will be on the MLS.