Ever wondered what stories lie behind the iconic crests of soccer teams? Get ready to unravel the tales woven into the very fabric of the beautiful game's most enduring symbols. Join Wes Harris, Managing Director for USL Arkansas, as we trace the evolution of soccer crests from their humble origins in England to the powerful insignias they are today. We'll explore how these badges do more than just differentiate one club from another – they encapsulate a team's ethos, embody their history, and serve as a rallying point for fans across the globe. From the heraldic legacy of Aston Villa's lion to the national pride emblazoned on England's Three Lions, this episode is your ticket to a deeper understanding of the emblems that resonate with millions.
As we delve into the world of football club badge design, prepare to be captivated by the intricate details that define a team's identity. I'll guide you through the meanings of shapes, colors, and symbols that adorn the kits of the most celebrated clubs. We'll dissect why the color pink might be perfect for a club like Inter Miami and how the royal crown of Real Madrid reflects its regal roots. Plus, we'll take a closer look at Manchester United's crest, where the iconic ship is not just a design element but a nod to the city's trading heritage. By the end of our journey, you'll look at these crests with a newfound appreciation for the art and intentionality that stitch together the past and present of the world's beloved football clubs.
Ever wondered what stories lie behind the iconic crests of soccer teams? Get ready to unravel the tales woven into the very fabric of the beautiful game's most enduring symbols. Join Wes Harris, Managing Director for USL Arkansas, as we trace the evolution of soccer crests from their humble origins in England to the powerful insignias they are today. We'll explore how these badges do more than just differentiate one club from another – they encapsulate a team's ethos, embody their history, and serve as a rallying point for fans across the globe. From the heraldic legacy of Aston Villa's lion to the national pride emblazoned on England's Three Lions, this episode is your ticket to a deeper understanding of the emblems that resonate with millions.
As we delve into the world of football club badge design, prepare to be captivated by the intricate details that define a team's identity. I'll guide you through the meanings of shapes, colors, and symbols that adorn the kits of the most celebrated clubs. We'll dissect why the color pink might be perfect for a club like Inter Miami and how the royal crown of Real Madrid reflects its regal roots. Plus, we'll take a closer look at Manchester United's crest, where the iconic ship is not just a design element but a nod to the city's trading heritage. By the end of our journey, you'll look at these crests with a newfound appreciation for the art and intentionality that stitch together the past and present of the world's beloved football clubs.
Speaker 1:
Pitch to Pro is the official podcast of USL Arkansas. This will be our platform to tell our story about the club and the special place that we call home, northwest Arkansas. This is a journey we want to bring you along for the ride. We'll share what's going on behind the curtain, help educate the community at large about soccer, our league, and give updates on the progress of the club along the way. Together, we'll explore and unpack our journey to professional soccer, the magic that is NWA, our community, and talk all things soccer from on the pitch to behind the scenes, telling the story of our club. Pitch to Pro Podcast is proudly sponsored by PodcastVideoscom. Podcastvideoscom is Northwest Arkansas' premier podcast recording studio, equipped with industry-leading equipment. The recording studio and services save you time, money and hassle. They are dedicated to helping you create, record and publish high-quality podcasts for your audience. Be sure to check them out today at podcastvideoscom. Hello everybody and welcome back to the Pitch to Pro podcast. I'm your host, wes Harris, managing Director for USL Arkansas, northwest Arkansas' professional soccer club, playing in the United Soccer League Today.
Speaker 1:
I thought we'd have a little bit of fun, do something a little bit different. Since we're working on our club branding, I thought it would be kind of a fun exercise to take a look at a little bit of history, uh, around soccer crests, or badges or logos, or whatever you want to call them, where they come from. Break down some of the most iconic soccer logos in the world from some of the biggest clubs what goes into a crest, what goes, you know, what are the some of the things that clubs think about, um, and and fans care about, and just have a fun discussion about those and and get into it a little bit. So that's what we're going to try to do today for you guys. So first let's just talk a little bit about the history, uh, of soccer crests and surrounding soccer crests. So there's there's a ton of books out there available. Everybody probably has their favorite, but this is a good place to start. I really like this one, the Beautiful Badge, and you can find it on Amazon. It really does a nice job of kind of telling the history and going into great detail about what goes into these great crests and logos that we've come to know and love and, as you can see, it's pretty, pretty nicely illustrated as well. So again, there's a ton out there. I just wanted to share with you guys that these books do exist.
Speaker 1:
And you again, if you go back to where the game started in England back in the 1800s, at least in terms of the modern football or soccer that we know today, clubs they wore sweaters typically was kind of the uniform, so they were kind of some kind of knitwear, and just based on the cost of getting different colors across the various uniforms or their sweaters, a lot of teams actually had similar colors. One of the ways that they started to denote, you know, make make some differences and denote what team uh they. They started to kind of sew in, as you guys can see here on the over my shoulder, here, uh, on the three lions there on the white sweater. They started to stitch in some logos, some symbols. Sometimes it was initials of the players or the club, and that's where some of the early badges and club crests started is with initials of the club. That's why that started that way. And so you know you've got one of the oldest clubs in England, aston Villa, there, which it's still one of their main elements today in terms of their new crest is, you know, that kind of lion standing lion there. And then you have England's Three Lions famous Three Lions crest which was worn on their white sweaters during the first ever FIFA recognized international soccer match in 1872, which was England versus Scotland, and so you guys can kind of see how that kind of comes together there. You start to get the picture in terms of what clubs started to do in those early, early days. And that's kind of how we started getting these crests.
Speaker 1:
And you know, some of the other additional, like why are they called crests? Some of the other additional like why are they called crests? That was something that was interesting to me too, was they kind of a lot of them tried to denote different regions which had some history and heraldry to them or pay some homage to either families or royalty or countries and their coats of arms, and so that's where crest kind of comes from, and not just a logo or a brand. So that's why we call it a crest or a badge in soccer. So I thought it'd be cool to kind of talk about, you know, what are some of the different elements in terms of what makes a good crest. I think you know this is a bit subjective and people could you know in talking with a lot of folks and doing some of the research here.
Speaker 1:
Uh, for today's episode, this is this is kind of some common themes, okay, and so one of the most important things about the crest, uh, yes, design is important, some of the symbols are important colors, but really what people will tell you, and I think can align to and agree with, is it needs to tell a story. You need to be able to connect with the crest as a fan and understand the different pieces and components of it and how it comes together to tell and paint a bigger picture, and so I think that that is probably, for me, one of the most important things when we think about what makes a good crest. Secondarily, I think and these aren't necessarily in any particular order, by the way, but I think it also really needs to connect with the club's mission, vision, values. It needs to be representative of the club itself and what does the club say that it stands for, and so when people see that crest, they identify it with the club and it is an ambassador for the club wherever it is worn or shown throughout the world, and sometimes you know that's what's seen. In and of itself, on its own, on different pieces of merchandise or print, or whatever the case may be, it becomes iconic and that's the thing that the club becomes known for, and so it really needs to be representative of what the club stands for. And so I think that again, it needs to be able to paint a picture, tell a story and connect back to those mission, vision, values and those key tenets of the club. Just as importantly, it needs to represent the area. It needs to be relevant to the area where the club is located. I think that all of the great crests around the world, in different clubs around the world, in different leagues, they connect back to the community and that has to be, I think, of any. That's so important, of any good crest or badge is it has to be representative and connected to some of the pieces that make that community an area special and great, and that needs to be part of the club itself and the ethos and, you know, its mission, vision value. So I think if you've gotten the mission, vision values right and connected to the area, then that should hopefully translate over to the badge as well in the crest.
Speaker 1:
And then you know, obviously there's the design elements. Okay, so you have the overall design. What shape is it? You know, is it? The circular badge is now pretty popular in some different leagues and clubs and teams Traditional crest or shield shape, again, kind of that homage to more traditional kind of coats of arms, if you will.
Speaker 1:
That's where that history comes in, to play a little bit there. And then, what colors you know you have. Certain colors mean certain things. You know your, your warmer colors, your reds, your oranges, your yellows. They're a little bit more adventurous, aggressive, domineering. You know hopeful a little bit with the yellows, and you know sunshine and that kind of thing, uh, or some of your cooler colors, like blues, are really you know, into, like loyalty and, um, you know greens, uh, a lot of times playing into nature and and those kinds of themes. Uh, pink is a little more playful, like Miami and inter Miami and what they've done. Uh, I think David Beckham is one of the few that could pull off a pink kit for his club. So, but they do it, they do it well, they pull it off nicely, um, so anyway, those are the.
Speaker 1:
And then you get into symbols, um, a little bit too. You know different animals have different meaning, whether you go realistic, animal or sometimes there's folklore in the area. Um, you know, I can say this, you know, with example, we just talked about inter Miami. They have the, the um, the white storks there that are really popular in Southern Florida. Uh, so, anyway, you guys get the picture, symbols, colors, design, they all kind of come together and again tell that story and make a holistic you know conversation around what is the badge and crest stand for. So for me those are some of the main elements.
Speaker 1:
Again, I think people can make arguments for others, but I think that that is pretty well encompassing. All right, guys, we've talked a little bit in terms of the history of the crests of the world and why are they called crest badges, how did they come to be? We also talked about some of the key tenants of what makes a good crest. They call crest badges. How did they come to be? We also talked about some of the key tenants of what makes a good crest, and so what I think now is a good thing to kind of jump into is what I've done is I've put together a compilation of the top five leagues in Europe, from Spain, england, germany, france and Italy, and what are the most well-known clubs within that league that the badges or the crests would be well-known, and let's kind of take a look at them again. I think you know there's there's a ton of different research out there, a lot of different resources, and these are certainly not going to be all encompassing in terms of a breakdown on what they mean, but it'll give you guys a good idea of what kind of goes into these crests from some of the biggest clubs in the world, right, so let's jump into it.
Speaker 1:
So first up, we've got Real Madrid, probably the most well-known and most supported club in the world, based on at least the metrics that are current and what I've seen. So they have a couple of different elements here, and the other thing that I didn't mention previously is crests change a lot over time, especially from clubs that have been around for more than 100 plus years, and so each of the clubs that I'm about to show you has gone through several, several different iterations over their history, and so it's kind of hard to piece together their meanings. They keep some elements of some in the past and then they create new ones and meanings will morph. So, again, take this with a grain of salt, but it's an attempt to try to show you guys what some of these things mean. So Real Madrid In Spanish Real means royal, real Madrid.
Speaker 1:
In Spanish, real means royal. There you go, you've got the crown atop signifying the royalty, and this today, which was Madrid Club de Futbol or in English, madrid Football Club, and so that's why you see MCF in the center of the logo. They're still a part of the logo there, still a part of the logo. That was actually one of the first logo iterations and crest iterations of Real Madrid was just kind of an MCF, you know, kind of put together there. And so, again, I talked about that in the early days, that's how a lot of those came together, but it's still represented within the club today.
Speaker 1:
Real Madrid are famous for their all white kind of home kits and throughout their history that's been very, very consistent, with very few years where they've deviated from that. And it symbolizes that purity, that royalty again kind of playing into that motif of the club. And the blue band was originally purple, that kind of goes diagonally there across the crest. Purple, that kind of goes diagonally there across the across the crest and it represents the purple represented castile, which is the region in which madrid is situated, uh, and it was changed in to blue in 1997, uh, which was the color of the original club's crest. So playing a little bit of patronage there, back to that old uh crest and so that's real madrid.
Speaker 1:
We'll jump in here next and let's take a look at Manchester United. As a diehard Liverpool fan, that I'm giving man U any kind of love right now is hard, but it's okay. We got to be agnostic here and its current modern day crest doesn't really look like anything that it had in the beginning. The only thing that it's really kept is that merchant ship that you guys see at the top there of the shield, inside the circle there, I guess, is what you would call it of the banners, and the merchant ship still means what it does today. Manchester was a powerhouse kind of port city and was a massive part of global trade and commerce, especially during the Industrial Revolution. A lot big, big factory town, town, and so that's what that denotes, is kind of that signal to the town's history of being this symbol of industry and global trade.
Speaker 1:
You also have this kind of ornate feel about Manchester United, even in their modern day iteration of their logo, and this is a bit of a nod back to the history of the club. Even though it doesn't look necessarily like it, it's still ornate and kind of flourishy, if you will, for lack of a better term with those banners and how it comes together. And that's because the club's original crest was this very ornate kind of coat of arms, and so it's a little bit of, again, a nod to the history there. The Red Devil is actually something that came into play in the 1970s and it was during the Matt Busby era in the 60s where it was kind of a nickname that they became known for. They wanted to instill fear in their opponents the way they flew around the pitch, and so that was just a nickname that kind of became adopted from, you know, supporters in the club during that era, and they made it official as part of, you know, a centerpiece really of the club, and their crest were the colors of the coat of arms in the crest where they were first featured. And so those are some of the elements there in terms of Manchester United.
Speaker 1:
Next up we've got Juventus. So we jump over to Italy and Serie A and one of the most storied clubs in all the world and for sure, within Italy. There's a lot to choose from. Again, I chose Juventus because one they're one of the bigger clubs in the country, but also they have one of the most unique crests in world football and this is a new one that they've re-released, I guess within the last decade now, and it's very distinctive. It's one of the few that is kind of this really modern.
Speaker 1:
Take, uh, in terms of the shape, uh, you guys can see there in terms of this, uh, basically a j for the for juventus, and so the way that they've done it, though they, they have, you know, kind of two different components that make it look like three there I don't know if I'm describing it right, but basically three channels is kind of how it looks, which is a bit of a nod to the Scudetto shape of the country's flag and the national team signifying Italy, team, uh, signifying italy, and you know they're, they say they say that it represents the club's determination to strive for victory. But in in the italian national flag, you have the three colors vertically, um, in those channels, on the, on the crest of the national team shirt, and so that's kind of that same motif and feel as you work your way across from left to right on the on the juventus crest you also have, you know, with those two kind of blocks and and the way that they've done that, it creates this, um, imagined kind of stripe, um sensation. When you look at it, I guess, uh, and so that is a very iconic kit for juventus is those black and white striped kits, and so that's what they've attempted to do there, and then the J obviously kind of stands on its own as one of the most popular clubs and Juve and that's what they're going for there. So that's Juventus, a different take, a little bit more modern, know, modern and and a little bit more, I guess, forward thinking. You could say, um, it got a lot of different, very kind of divided reviews when it came out I think it was 2017, but I could be wrong there on the date but, uh, not too long ago for sure.
Speaker 1:
So, anyway, different take there from you that, jumping over to France and Paris Saint-Germain for sure, the biggest club, uh, in in France, um, you know, and has has drawn, with the new ownership, some big, big name players Messi, neymar, mbappe, uh, just to name a few over the last few years here. So Paris Saint-Germain is a club that I didn't know this until I was doing the research actually represents not just this town and city of Paris, but also a smaller town that was kind of a royal town and I'm going to butcher this, I really apologize, I don't speak French but Saint-Germain-en-Laye, which is a neighboring town, that was, you know, a really royal town back in the day and as part of the town's history in France, and so that is why the club is called Paris, saint-germain, um, and obviously it's got really prominent there. What Paris is known for, with the Eiffel tower right, uh, really pops with the red against the blue, um, and the logo was built around in that circular shape as a stylized depiction of a soccer ball or a football, uh, so that's how it's got its round shape, uh, the red and blue have, you know, historically been the been the colors to represent France as well as, obviously, like I said, eiffel Tower. The shape always is a part of that. And then the fleur-de-lis is a symbol of French royalty and also a bit of a nod again to that town of Saint-Germain there, and that's why it's located towards the bottom where it says Saint-Germain as well, and so that's a little bit more in terms of, uh, psg, or Paris Centrum, man.
Speaker 1:
And then finally we have Bayern Munich, uh, or Bayern München, uh, there's actually a much longer name if you want to get technical in in the official German name of the club, but Bayern Munich is located in the Bavarian portion of Germany and there were three main regions for Bavaria, and so that's part of it's kind of a combination of those, at least for sure two of them in terms the the different regions and and coats of arms and crests and things like that in terms of how this came together. Uh, so the red color in the badge is actually a nod to the franconia coat of arms, which was one of the three main regions of bavaria, um, where the club is located, like I said. And then the blue and white checkered pattern comes from the coat of arms from the Wieselbach dynasty, which ruled Upper Bavaria from the years 1240 all the way to 1918. And again, they take that kind of modern, a little bit more modern circular look there, which they've done for quite a while. They've been one that's been one of the ones to lead that, and so, anyway, that's Bayern Munich. They don't have a. It's not super complicated, but is not always the case in terms of what you need to be known and memorable. Sometimes a little bit more simplistic is the route to go there.
Speaker 1:
So, anyway, that's Bayern Munich, and so, hopefully, what we've been able to do today is give you guys a little bit of history in terms of soccer crests. You know what makes a good crest, what goes into it, what are some of the pieces that people have to consider. And then you know, we dove a little bit into some of the better known crests around the world, from the largest soccer clubs on the planet and some of the biggest leagues and have the biggest following and fan base. So it's an exciting time to be able to be a part of this and help co-develop a brand and a crest with our community. And you know we're definitely taking all of the feedback that we possibly can. We're engaged.
Speaker 1:
That you know we took from earlier stages of listening sessions, as well as online surveys and polls. That we've done. We've heard you guys and have been working with our fan panel to make sure that you guys are represented and your voices are heard as we kind of develop this brand and what will become our crest. What will become our crest and so, hopefully, something that you guys can be proud of, but certainly one where we can absolutely say that we have been involved in and making sure that the community is at the forefront of everything that we're doing here as we develop this brand that's going to be representative, you know, of Northwest Arkansas and our broader region. So thank you, guys. Hopefully you enjoyed that episode and now you know a little bit more aboutcer Crest, so we'll catch you next time. Make sure you tune in for the next episode of Pitch to Pro and until next time, I'm Marthos Arkansas. We'll see you, thanks.
