Usseglio: When a Kit Means More
Revolution’s Eastern White Pine Kit Brings Me Home
Soccer is a special sport for many reasons. In New England, sports run in our blood. The passion we feel for our teams is part of what makes our region great. It is not like this everywhere.
Everyone knows the Patriots, Celtics, Red Sox, and Bruins. The iconic colors of those teams are synonymous with Boston and New England. The green and white of the Celtics. The black and gold of the Bruins. The red, white, and blue of the Red Sox and Patriots.
You could go anywhere in the country, heck anywhere in the world, and you would immediately recognize those colors. We connect with those jerseys and with those teams. They are a source of pride and a means to connect us all.
One of the things I love most about soccer is the way the sport can bring us together. How it unites us, rooting for our common team.
Look at the roster of the Revolution. Players from around the world, including our own backyard, representing our club.
Look at our community. The folks that have been here forever and those who have newly arrived. Our stories and lives make up the fabric of New England. When we see one another out in our communities with a Sox hat, a Patriots hoodie, or a Celtics jersey, we know. We are part of the same team.
When you have to leave New England for whatever reason, work in my case, you quickly realize how much you miss that community. How seldom it is to see someone in that Sox hat, Patriots hoodie, or Celtics jersey. When you do see someone, you give a knowing nod. That you’re both part of the same team, far from home.
In the landscape of New England sports, the Revolution are still really young. The club is going into its 30th season, having played their first season in 1996.
I was born in 1991. I’m older than the club, something I think many fans would able to say. Compare that to the likes of the Celtics, who began playing in 1946 or the Red Sox who were established in 1901 and started playing at Fenway Park in 1912 after their previous seasons at the Huntington Grounds.
We are just at the beginning of MLS and soccer in New England. Look at the growth over the past couple of years, with the likes of Hartford Athletic, Rhode Island FC, BOS Nation FC, and the Portland Hearts of Pine entering the scene. Never mind the World Cup right around the corner in 2026 with games being played at Gillette Stadium. Soccer has arrived in the United States and in New England.
As the sport continues to grow, Revolution gear will eventually become commonplace. It will take time, don’t get me wrong, but one day it may no longer be a rare sighting to see someone out in the community wearing a Revs jersey. Someone we can give that knowing nod, that we share a connection, that we are on the same team.
Something else that I love about soccer is that teams don’t use the same jerseys. In many leagues they create a new home, away, and third kit each season. For MLS, excluding Miami I guess, each team gets one new kit every season. We have that two-year cycle, rotating home and away each year.
When you have to create so many kits you can get creative. You can stay true to the ethos of the club, but you have room to explore. To connect with fans and the community in a profoundly different way than the Patriots, Celtics, Red Sox, or Bruins could ever do.
New England has such a rich history, culture, and diversity of our community. We are a region, not just a city. Our history goes back to the birth of the country. Our region is diverse, both in our people and our landscapes. For a long time, the Revs used navy as the base for our home kits, with red and white trim. They used white as the base for the away kits, with navy and red trim. Colors connected to our namesake, to the history of our region but something changed in 2015.
In 2015, the Revolution introduced the Flag of New England kit. The first kit that deviated from the color scheme of our traditional away kits. This kit paid homage to the red flag of New England, with its white square and solitary green pine tree in the upper left corner.
It was beautiful. To this day, it is one of my favorite Revolution kits.
Ever since then, the team has started working in the history and landscapes of our region into their kit designs in more pronounced ways. More than just a color scheme, the kits connect us to who we are.
When the Revs introduced their new away kit for this season, the Eastern White Pine kit, that connection hit home. I grew up in New Hampshire, eastern white pine trees were the backdrop of my childhood. They made up the woods behind my house. Their pine needles and pine cones covered the trails of Mine Falls Park, where I used to play soccer from elementary school up until I graduated high school.
You don’t realize how much you miss something until it’s gone. One of the first things I look forward to when I travel home to see family nowadays is going for a walk in the woods. To smell the fresh air and the scent of those pine trees.
This kit connects me to home, in a profound way that is impossible for any other sport. It is not a connection to colors, or to history but to memories, time, and place.
I love that about soccer. That something so simple as a jersey can be so much more than that. I hope every fan of the Revolution will at one point have a jersey that immediately connects them to home. That connection to home is what unites us, what makes us strong.
When I see the Revs take the field in that kit, I will think back to all of those memories that I hold so dear. Sports are powerful in that way. In connections and memories.
Kudos to the team that designed this year’s kit. It is one of my favorite Revs jerseys of all time. Let’s go win a trophy in it.
This is a beautiful article
I hope they use this kit as the home kit. It's time for a change from the drab blue year after year.