New LAFC logo creates the usual commotion, but why do we care?

One of Major League Soccer's many upcoming expansion franchises, Los Angeles Football Club, revealed its logo on Thursday.

The designer explained his work here.

The reaction was predictable. It could generally be broken down into one or several of the below gripes:

• It's too American.

• It's too European.

• The font isn't right.

• The colors aren't right.

• The wing isn't right.

• The logo is derivative.

And yet LAFC's crest was far better received than most.

Still, the conversation revolved not so much around a new club and how it will impact the stateside game as a whole, but the minutiae of its execution of one small element of its launch. Because somehow, in the grand sweep of the warp-speed progress of soccer in this country, we always seem to get caught up and bogged down in the little details.

It's only a logo. There are many like it. And there are many unlike it. Literally its only purpose is to make a brand, or in this case a team, easily identifiable. It's something to put on merchandise. It fulfills all of those requirements. Perhaps it looks like other logos, but it's hard not to, considering the number of logos and crests and badges and shields and sigils – or whatever you want to call them – that are already out there.

But this is all to miss the point by a mile. What matters is how LAFC will function within the context of the league, not what its badge or uniforms look like, or whether its name panders to Anglophiles and Eurosnobs – some recoil at American teams being named "football" rather than "soccer" clubs.

A better thing to worry about would be whether Los Angeles can support two franchises. Or if the team has the right ownership, rather than just a long list of famous people loosely attached to a fanciful project. Can they get a stadium built in an easy-to-reach venue in L.A. – insofar as that's possible there? Will the L.A. Memorial Sports Arena site come through? Will this quick expansion overheat the league? Is Major League Soccer's growth sustainable or is it inflating a bubble with nine-figure expansion fees?

And will LAFC be competitive? Can it land the marquee names you now seem to need to make a splash in your maiden season? Will it hire the right coach? The right general manager? The right front office staff?

These are the relevant questions.

Because a logo is just a logo.

Leander Schaerlaeckens is a soccer columnist for Yahoo Sports. Follow him on Twitter @LeanderAlphabet.