Hot Time Notebook: What’s the best jersey in MLS history?

MLS is celebrating its “jersey week” with a knockout tournament on Twitter, where fans get to vote on the league’s best jerseys of all time. The Chicago Fire appear to be in the 32-jersey bracket once—with the iconic 1998 home shirt. There are some other fun ones in there, too, like Kansas City’s 1997 rainbow jersey, and the 1996 San Jose Clash shirt.

It’s also worth noting that even though the tournament is sponsored by adidas, there are plenty of non-adidas shirts in there. U.S. Soccer did a similar tournament recently, and left off everything pre-Nike, including the 1994 World Cup jerseys. Voting is underway right now.

In other news...

Charles Boehm had a nice piece on MLSsoccer.com, where he spoke to Fire Sporting Director Georg Heitz about all the recent Homegrown signings. It’s something Heitz said would be a priority in his intro video put out by the club right after he was hired, and he’s been true to his word there. Boehm points out the Fire have the second-most Homegrown Players on the current roster in all of MLS, which is a very good trend.

Finally, over at Sounder at Heart, Jeremiah Oshan argues that MLS should scrap its plan to re-start the season with all 26 teams living in quarantine in Orlando. It’s a well thought out piece that looks at both the upside and downside of the plan, as well as alternatives. Make sure you take a look at the comments section, too. Most of the responses arguing either way are smart and considerate, something we don’t see much of elsewhere these days.

I haven’t fully made up my mind on the Orlando plan, other than to say it would be really hard on players with children at home. But, as I argued the other day, I do think it’s ridiculous that Illinois hasn’t allowed the Fire to begin voluntary individual training. Most teams are already doing it, and the MLS plan seems a lot safer than players training in public.