Since changing names and logos is all the rage these days, let’s agree to tweak the meaning of the three stars in Major League Soccer’s newish crest. Instead of “club, country and community,” they’ll now symbolize the principles that underpin the league’s branding, its structure and the message it sends to dedicated fans. They now stand for “conformity, cloning and cowardice.”
Those three stars represent the Holy Trinity of American soccer. Within three there is one—the single entity. That unique league structure cultivates a collective and inevitable deference to the whole, as well as a persuasive impulse to fall in line, blend in and follow.