It was inevitable. Pundits and spectators who rarely pay attention to soccer—but apparently were lured into taking notice of the significant World Cup match between the potential insurrectionist Americans taking on imperial England—rushed to label the resulting 0-0 tie as “boring.” At least when long-ago sports columnist Jim Murray wanted to make that sort of personal observation about the sport, back when most Yanks still dismissed soccer as a foreign enterprise, he did so with some snarky humor: “I’d tell you the final score but there wasn’t any.”

Fine. I will not work myself into a high dudgeon in defense of what I found to be a tense and dramatic duel in the globe’s most-followed athletic event. The argument over soccer’s relative appeal remains a truly dull one. You like soccer or you don’t. Like poetry or gardening.

What obviously was boring were the American uniforms. “Kits,” in the soccer vernacular. A humdrum monochromatic blue? Blue shirts, blue shorts, blue socks? (With black splotches upon really close examination.)

There are teams running around loose at the World Cup nattily and appropriately attired: Argentines in their classic Albiceleste, the white-and-sky-blue stripes that mimic Argentina’s flag; Croatians in the red-and-white checkerboard from that nation’s coat of arms; Germans with a wide vertical black stripe on white; Brazilians in their traditional yellow shirts; Mexicans in inventive alternate jerseys of white covered with red doodles representing the country’s pre-Hispanic memory and current cultural touchstones.

In ranking the top uniforms in this World Cup, a cbssports.com post previewed “which teams will look the most stylish in Qatar and why the USMNT [U.S. Men’s National Team] won’t be among them.” (The English outfits aren’t much better—white with pale-blue touches, hardly summoning England’s white flag with red St. George’s cross—though England’s alternate uniforms, all red, save the day.)

The Americans’ present sartorial tedium recalls 1990, when the United States qualified for its first World Cup appearance in 40 years and showed up in unremarkable white duds with some blue trim. It was fellow journalist John Powers of the Boston Globe, exposed to that drab kit, who argued that the Yanks should have come “looking like Apollo Creed, all stars and stripes.” (Creed, kiddies, was the fictional boxer, sort of a pugilist Uncle Sam, played by Carl Weathers in the series of 1970s and ‘80s “Rocky” movies.)

Then, voila! For the U.S.-based World Cup in 1994, the athletic outfitter adidas tailored a pair of bespoke outfits for the home team that indeed broadcast stars and stripes in national colors. One uniform featured a faded blue shirt of imitation denim—very American—with huge stretched-out white stars and red trim and red shorts; the other consisted of a white shirt with wavy red stripes and blue shorts—very flaggish. (Photo above)

Of course, the whole uniform project—then as now—always is based on marketing, and most of the U.S. players were startled, and not particularly thrilled, upon being introduced to the ’94 outfits, which they found a bit gaudy. “I opened the box and said, ‘There must be some mistake,’” John Harkes said at the time. “But,” he added with a shrug, “it kind of grows on you, actually.” Alexi Lalas—now a World Cup commentator with the standard middle-aged businessman’s appearance but then a lanky goateed, flowing-locks redheaded defender—was said by a couple of teammates to “look like Raggedy Ann” in the red-striped shirt.

Now, with the ’22 World Cup in progress, and really not much to say about the Americans’ attire—impossible to describe it as chic or snappy or dapper or modish—it was interesting to come across an exhaustive report on The Athletic website resurrecting the then-shocking departure from the norm with those 1994 outfits: How most of the players initially were appalled by the kits, which were unlike anything soccer had ever seen, yet over time have embraced them, partly based on fond memories of having made a surprise run to the Cup’s knockout round that year.

Honestly, fellow World Cup observers—whatever you think of soccer—is there anything about the current U.S. kits that fits Nike’s claim that they “inspire unity, symbolize diversity and celebrate [a] commitment to expanding the game for the next generation on and off the pitch…”? Is there anything interesting about them at all?

Sorry. Boring.