{"id":9311,"date":"2026-03-29T16:03:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-29T16:03:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/9311\/"},"modified":"2026-03-29T16:03:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-29T16:03:08","slug":"usmnt-shocked-by-jersey-clash-in-loss-to-belgium-it-was-almost-like-a-fifty-fifty-thing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/9311\/","title":{"rendered":"USMNT ‘shocked’ by jersey clash in loss to Belgium: ‘It was almost like a fifty-fifty thing’"},"content":{"rendered":"

There was plenty to talk about after the United States men\u2019s national team suffered a brutal 5-2 loss to Belgium<\/a> on Saturday. But underlying the USMNT\u2019s harsh reality check<\/a> was another issue: the surprising similarity between the two team\u2019s jerseys.<\/p>\n

The USMNT was debuting one of its new kits for the 2026 World Cup<\/a>: a white jersey with red stripes that emulate the American flag. But Belgium wore their away kit, which was also white with pink and light blue accents.<\/p>\n

Up close, the two jerseys look nothing alike, but from a distance, the red accents and pink accents on the white jersey look far more similar. The result was a game where the main distinguishing factor was in the shorts: Belgium\u2019s shorts were white, while the U.S.\u2019s were dark blue.<\/p>\n

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Postgame, USMNT midfielder Christian Pulisic and Weston McKennie both said that the jersey issue wasn\u2019t \u201can excuse\u201d for their poor performance, but both noted that it made the game a bit more \u201cdifficult.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat just can\u2019t happen. It was a bit strange. It was very difficult. I didn\u2019t know until we took off the pre-match shirts and then saw it and everyone was a bit shocked,\u201d Pulisic said postgame. \u201cWhen you a lot of times you get the ball, you look up like and you can\u2019t really like lock in on someone. You only can base it off the color of the shirt. That\u2019s how it works. And when it\u2019s very similar, it\u2019s difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhenever you do a quick glance to tell which was which, it was almost like a fifty-fifty thing,\u201d McKennie added. \u201cSo you definitely had to maybe take a little bit more time on the ball before you made a decision or play one-touch to a player.\u201d<\/p>\n

Belgium, despite getting the dominant win, reportedly also agreed: Midfielder Amadou Onana told The Athletic<\/a> that the jersey clash was \u201cawful,\u201d and Belgium goalkeeper Senne Lammens told the outlet that he brought up the issue to Belgium\u2019s equipment staff at halftime.<\/p>\n

However, per The Athletic, though both teams considered changing jerseys, neither team\u2019s alternate jerseys were available. The Athletic reports that the USMNT considered going to get their other jerseys from the team hotel during the first half, but they would not have been able to bring them back in time.<\/p>\n

A U.S. Soccer spokesperson told ESPN<\/a> that the jerseys were approved by both teams and the referees multiple times ahead of the game, and that the referees did not find issue in the jersey matchup.<\/p>\n

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The USMNT\u2019s other jersey, dark blue with stars, would have certainly served as better contrast to Belgium\u2019s away kit. Natalie McKeough, a color designer with Nike who worked on the jersey, wrote on social media<\/a> that the U.S.\u2019s stripes jersey was approved as \u201cthe light kit\u201d by FIFA.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhoever approved this matchup messed up fr,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n

The USMNT will play on Tuesday in another World Cup tune-up against Portugal. But breathe a sigh of relief: The U.S. will probably wear that dark blue kit for that game, leaving a similar clash with either of Portugal\u2019s kits unlikely.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There was plenty to talk about after the United States men\u2019s national team suffered a brutal 5-2 loss…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9312,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[6308,7,4561,335,2061,6307,5695,4529,4564,6306],"class_list":{"0":"post-9311","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-belgium","8":"tag-belgian-red-devils","9":"tag-belgium","10":"tag-christian-pulisic","11":"tag-portugal","12":"tag-senne-lammens","13":"tag-the-athletic","14":"tag-united-states-mens-national-team","15":"tag-usmnt","16":"tag-weston-mckennie","17":"tag-white-jersey"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@be\/116313312648761956","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9311"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9311\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}