Good Friday morning Caps fans, hope you all are gearing up for Labour Day and the last days of summer.

Vancouver are on hiatus for this week, with Orlando City appearing in the Leagues Cup third place match Saturday instead of coming to BC Place. There are a lot of jokes to be made here but, in seriousness, it sucks for the Caps, who already had a game in hand against Portland to make up later in the season. And while a break is nice, three weeks is enough to thrust you out of your element and cause rustiness.

TSN reported yesterday evening that Schalke are kicking the tires on a move for Ali Ahmed. There is no indication as to whether Vancouver wishes to sell, only that there is no agreement. I have a hard time seeing the Caps selling at this stage of the season but they proved with Pedro Vite that they will move players on for the right price, even if it is inconvenient. And Vancouver did reserve an international roster spot for a potential free agent if they needed it, meaning they would not be completely locked in were a transfer to materialize. This is one keeping an eye on over the next week or so ahead of the European transfer window slamming shut.

Alright, onto the important stuff: kit news.

Footy Headlines, generally reliable for kit leaks, reported over the weekend that the Caps are one of eight teams getting an Archive kit next season, with the league apparently doing something with the 90s era 86ers branding.

I will say, I am a bit surprised that MLS didn’t opt for either the OG 86ers branding or a nod to the USL-era brand (the Caps have more or less appropriated the NASL-era Whitecaps kit style as their home jersey so there isn’t a ton of new ground to be covered there). 

That all being said, this is pretty cool. I was a bit miffed that the Caps, a team with a rich history, were passed over for a third kit in favor of recent expansion sides like Inter Miami (I mean, we all know why that happened but still). But the retro kits were, by and large, an unmitigated success (though it is a bit alarming realizing I remembered watching games where teams were wearing the original version of those kits).

MLS doesn’t lean into its history enough and the retro kits are a cool way of not just making some money and creating some cool merch but also educating fans about soccer history in North America that, in the case of the Caps and many of their peer clubs, predate their time in MLS by decades.

Given the cost of kits these days, I’d expect this to be a spendy proposition, so the early announcement gives folks some time to start saving. Given the spike in interest the team has seen with Muller, now is a great time to introduce those new fans to the club’s history. 

Best of the Rest

Mauricio Pochettino is making some weird roster decisions for the USMNT but congrats to Tristan Blackmon and Seb Berhalter for the call up.

Should Tate Johnson be getting some U.S. U-20 love?

Meanwhile, the Canadian national team contingent is strong at the senior and youth levels.

MLS clubs collectively smashed the previous record for transfer spending, another sign of the league’s growth.

Will Canada see more World Cup matches due to the U.S. political climate?