African Qualifying

The African tournament was wide open, the favorites were the host South Africa, but many teams had a strong shot at making the finals. With the lack of arenas in South Africa, the set up was different. Group A would play in Cape Town, and Group B in Durban. The final 4 would take place in Johannesburg. South Africa and Algeria faced off in the opening game in Cape Town. South Africa won by 8, and started the tournament off right. Egypt and the Ivory Coast played with the Egyptians rallying late and downing the upstart Ivory Coast team. Group B opened with the Cameroon team upsetting the Ugandan team with a big 3rd quarter. Kenya faced with their eyes set on beating the 40th ranked team in the world. They couldn’t close the game in the end and Tunisia won their first group game. 

South Africa played the Egyptians trying to advance to the next round. They were successful with an 11 point win. Algeria and Ivory Coast were trying to set up a win-and-your-in game in the next round against Egypt, Algeria won handily setting up the showdown. Tunisia and Uganda played in Durban, and the Ugandans opened a 12 point lead and Tunisia never got within 4 the rest of the game. Kenya played Cameroon trying to earn their first win and tie up Group B 1-1. Kenya did win, setting the score for the 3rd game. 

 South Africa was already in the knockouts, and had the Ivory Coast between them and the knockouts. The starters were phased out with the lead at 15, and the Ivory Coast team went home with a 0-3 record. The climax of group B came with Algeria and Egypt playing to advance. The Egyptians had the lead in but the Algerians came back and won by 4 and set a date with the winner of group B. Uganda-Kenya, and Tunisia-Cameroon with each winner advancing to the knockout stage. Uganda took a 2 point lead into the 4th and stretched it to 12 before the final buzzer. Cameroon opened up a 8 point lead at half, and the Tunisian team slowly lowered the lead, and then passed the Cameroon team halfway through the 4th and never looked back. 

South Africa and Tunisia matched up in Jo-Burg, and Mikel Mkandla led the South Africans to a victory with an 18 point performance. Uganda won group B, and faced Algeria looking for a finals appearance. Uganda’s barber pole uniforms were all over in their victory against the Algerians with a 7 point victory, which was never really close. The South Africans were looking to join China as a team winning their home tournament. They played their best game of the tournament, and sent the Ugandans home, and booked their ticket to the US.

Qualified teams

Puerto Rico Islanders

I was reading an article about the Cosmos, and the Islanders’ gradient multicolored excuse for a logo just stood out. I went to their website, and it was almost as bad as their logo.

 http://www.prislandersfc.com/

 I especially like the logos in jpg with white borders around them. 

 Trying to replace the worst logo in the top 2 levels of the US Pyramid would be sort of easy, But I thought it would be fun to do a concept. I did the same crest shape, and put a ribbon around the logo. The original banner I had took about as much time to get wrong and delete it, than it did to do this whole logo. Puerto Rico has castles on the cliffs on the oceans, in which they have little areas like what I put in this concept overlooking the sea for enemy boats. So I made sort of a see scene with the castle, and the sea. The bottom is just a ball with a sun beam design coming out.

The jerseys are pretty simple, I kept to the template with some piping to make it slightly more original. They're in the MLS style with the font I wanted to use.

Go Rowdies!

Brooklyn Nets Rebrand

I was busy on vacation. 

 So in Brooklyn I saw my fair share of new Nets gear. I thought with the right LOGOS they could be super sweet. But their logos look rushed and generic, so I did the opposite and did something cool. 

 The cursive script was what I first wanted, I have that script, and cleaned it up and added a tail. Then I sketched a net, but the strings were interwoven with eachother as you can see below. I pieced the identity together with a circle logo and Brooklyn script. You guys better like it, inkscape crashed and I had to redo the whole concept.

Has the jerseys been released yet? Not even sure. I did a simple design similar to the last ones. The pattern up the side match the net design, and I put the design in the middle to see. Nothing special here!

WYC: Brazil

I may or may not threw this together, but I was playing with shapes like the USA basketball logo. I liked the front rounded part, with another shape behind it. I put some design, and a yakball under it. Pretty self explanatory. 

I did a "nike fabulous" uniform! It's pretty similar to my Dallas uniform. I did a band running diagnally across the chest, then a sublimated pattern running down to the end of the uniform. I tried to balance yellow, green, and blue just like the soccer team. The clash matches the home, and colorwise matches the soccer team's clash.

WYC: Argentina

I gave the South American champs a uniform that hopefully they would be proud of. I did a triangle with a drop shadow. I put AYA at the top, with the traditional light blue striping running vertical down under the sun from the flag. 

Like all the other Argentina teams, I did light blue stripes going down. I did a modern twist on them that I've toyed around with on an old soccer concept. The clash is a navy, traditional to the national teams.

South American Qualifying

The South American tournament host and favorite Brazil started their reign with an EASY win over Bolivia in Rio di Janiero 56-21. In reality, Brazil was going to advance from Goup A, but the second seed was wide open. Venezuela scored 6 points to end the game against Uruguay in Recife, to win by 3. Argentina was Brazil’s biggest rival, and also a tournament contender. They beat Ecuador by 13 in Curitiba. Chile and Peru was the last game in round 1, with the Peruvians prevailing 35-31 in Londrina.

Brazil had a match up against Venezuela, in which Brazil’s fans from Belo Horizonte came out in full force handing Venezuela their first loss in the group. Brasilia was the host of Uruguay-Bolivia, with Uruguay’s Suarez scoring 20 in route to a win. Peru was in over their head against Argentina in Manaus, Argentina’s 11th ranking in the world was on display beating Peru by 16. Chile and Ecuador was a good match up on paper, and Ecuador gave Chile their second loss in Sao Paulo.

Brazil and Uruguay had the two neighbors matched up, Brazil had already advanced, but a win by Uruguay and some help by Bolivia would send them to the knockouts. But the 10th best team in the world knocked the Uruguans out with a strong performance by Carvahlo in Recife. Venezuela sent Bolivia home officially with a defeat in Londrina. Argentina and Chile were playing for nothing, as their fates were decided. Argentina didn’t play their starters, and they beat the Chileans by 12 in Belo Horizonte. The real match up came with Peru and Ecuador with the winner going to the knockout round. Peru sent the fans in Curitiba mental with a shot at the buzzer from the 2 point line to win by 1 and advance.

Brazil’s first knockout game was in Brasilia against Peru. The Peruvian’s momentum didn’t last as Brazil won by 14. Argentina and Venezuela matched up in Rio di Janiero with the 11th ranked team prevailing to advance to the finals. The anticipated match up was realized in the finals. The Brazilians were the favorites in Sao Paulo, but the Argentine fans traveled well. The Brazilians led by 5, the largest of the game, heading into the half. Sergio Rodriguez led the Argentine team back, and scored 8 in the final frame leading the Argentine team to victory.

Qualified teams

WYC: Japan

So for these guys, I wanted to tie them into the soccer team, but tried my best to make them different. I was playing with an uneven crest, and after many tries finalized my logo. I put the initials of the Japanese Yakball Association, then the Japanese legend of the 3 legged bird, and a cherry blossom at the bottom. I ALMOST put a touch of pink in here, but didn't. 

I did a red band across the chest to balance the blue and the red which look really good together. I went for a simplistic look with adidas stripes. Nothing crazy.