In new soccer jersey swag news, Chivas de Guadalajara dropped their new 3rd kit today, and you’ll be forgiven for thinking it looks familiar. The Puma kit–the brand’s third for the iconic Liga MX club–bears a striking resemblance to the Mexican national team’s iconic green shirts, as part of the club’s #PorMexico initiative.
As if that wasn’t enough to call back to El Tri, the jerseys do not have a sponsor on the front; instead, the TK logo is on the back, where the players’ names would normally been. International team jerseys don’t have sponsors at all, so this is a step further towards cosplaying El Tri. To complete the look, Chivas will don white shorts and green socks for that authentic Mexican feel that’s as far as you can get from the club’s usual blue-and-red colorways.
The new kit will go on sale soon, which is coincidentally funny timing given some recent comments by Chivas’ coach. Matías Almeyda was critical of the Mexican national team’s schedule, attributing some of the club’s struggles at the start of this Liga MX season to El Tri’s double tournament summer:
“What happened to us at the beginning of the tournament has its coincidences with the tournaments played by the Mexican National Team. Many people went to the Gold Cup or Confederations and did not return well, could not and could not make a good preseason, ” said Almeyda. He went on to state that he has taken extra care with the players that came back from international duty to make sure that they return back to form.
No matter how the coach feels about international duty getting in the way of club responsibilities, there’s no stopping the pride that Mexicans have in themselves and in the country’s most popular (and most Mexican) side. Chivas is unapologetically linked to Mexico by virtue of its Mexican players-only policy, and now they’ll be rocking that El Tri look in domestic play as well.