A workhorse. Relentless. Club legend. The man affectionately known as Red Card Roger.
All apt descriptions of the Honduran international who has etched his name into Sporting Kansas City lore.
Espinoza is one of the three pillars of this modern era of KC Wiz/SKC history. Along with Graham Zusi and Matt Besler, he has helped lead the team through its most successful stint since its founding in 1996.
Roger was part of the team that won the 2012 US Open Cup and his career then catapulted to another level. While Espinoza was away in the Premier League and Championship with Wigan, he won the FA Cup while Sporting Kansas City marched to their second MLS Cup.
Since returning to Kansas City in 2015, Roger has helped the team win two more US Open Cups (2015, 2017).
Roger wore this shirt on May 29th, 2021 against the Houston Dynamo in a 3-2 victory. He served as captain with Johnny Walker on the bench to start the match.
This jersey appears to have been worn in the second half of the match by Espinoza and is photomatched to him wearing it thanks to the unique paint splatter style prints that are found on each jersey.
With this jersey specifically, there is a splatter that juts out from the crest at a 120 degree angle that is visible in several shots of Roger Espinoza from the match. To further emphasis this, there are also two shots of Roger in a separate jersey in the first half where there is no paint splatter design around that side of the crest.
There are also specific areas near the adidas logo and below the Victory Project sponsorship that show up in those photos from the second half that differ from the first half jersey that Espinoza is wearing.
More importantly, they also differ from each other individual player.
Here you can see the difference between the two shirts Roger Espinoza wore on May 29th, 2021. The blue circle is the photomatched version that is part of the collection, and the red circle is the shirt with different markings that was worn in the first half.
These special Primeblue kits were worn by MLS teams in the 2021 season -- half with the gray, white, and light blue kits, and the other half with a sort of teal, orange, and darker blue.
These were among the better iterations of the five versions of Primeblue/One Planet jerseys we’ve seen thus far. I’d rate it second behind the 2018 all white/all black Primeblue and just ahead of the 2023 One Planet design. It is much better than the 2019 version or the 2022 salmon/peach colored Primeblue that SKC wore.
Most of them were given away by clubs to fans who had impacted their community in positive ways. This one was sold by the club at their annual kitman sale on Black Friday 2021.
