Wavy Waldos, Tanner Punished, And MLS Week 4

Welcome to the Tuesday edition of Soccer Eagle. Before we get this flight underway, I'd like to ask you to help me spread the word by sharing the newsletter anywhere you can, anyway you can. Word-of-mouth is the best way for the newsletter to grow.

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Ride The Wave

It's official. The USMNT will be wearing these kits in the first World Cup on home soil come June.

Put me down for calling the "Stripes" shirt the "Wavy Waldos" since they were directly inspired by the originals "Waldos" that the USMNT wore during the end of the Landon Donovan Era.

From Pablo Maurer's behind-the-design piece at The Guardian that outlines how the players injected themselves into the design process to ensure they wouldn't be rocking duds like the did at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar:

The 14 players involved in the current design cycle also cited the “Candycanes” (as McKennie puts it) more commonly referred to as the “Waldos”, worn by the US between 2012 and 2014. That shirt was never loathed in the first place. The influence of the Waldos and the Denim Kit is not hard to see in this current cycle.

Do we have any idea as to why the players don't call them "Waldos" like the rest of us? Candycanes? Weird.

“It’s pretty straightforward,” said Adams. “[We have] to have stars and stripes of some sort on our kit, right? They represent us perfectly. Everyone loves the candy cane jerseys, I don’t think there’s any argument about that, so we wanted some iteration of that. And then I think the stars are the most unique ones. So we decided to go navy blue with silver stars, which I think represents us perfectly. I think that’s just going to be an all-time classic jersey.”

Leave it to the players to do the work the Nike designers should have done a long time ago: Identifying a potential "iconic" look for the USMNT and leaning into it for the World Cup. Back when the Waldos came and went, even those who didn't love it saw it as a look that could become a US soccer signature.

Playing with variations of the red-and-white stripes seems like the easiest way to still produce new looks on the current new jersey cycle while maintaining something that is distinctly American.

The blueish black ones are fine. I can kind of see the stars. FIFA guidelines on kits mandate one of the two uniforms be "predominantly colored" and while I guess Nike could have dropped a more blue blue kit, I'm not bothered by the navy.

More on the Wavy Waldos and the dropping Tuesday USMNT roster on Thursday night's recording of The Best Soccer Show. Subscribe to the YouTube channel to be notified when we go live. You can get the podcast version of the show on Spotify or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

Terrible Tanner

As I was prepping the newsletter Major League Soccer dropped a press release into the old inbox (it's a mess in there—I should probably do something about the 16k+ unread emails...) with an update on its investigation into Philadelphia Union sporting director Ernst Tanner.

Based on what we know about the allegations thanks to Pablo Maurer's reporting, this is a slap on the wrist for Tanner. We're not just talking about one incident or even one flavor of abhorrent behavior; we're talking about multiple racist and sexist comments as well as reports of inappropriate touching of a club employee. We're talking about a pattern of disgusting and indefensible behavior of years.

Tanner isn't accused of a one-time transgression a la Bruce Arena (who was suspended for the same length of time and given the same stipulation that he attend a "a League-approved restorative practices program" in order to be reinstated), he's accused of a laundry-list of unacceptable behavior that merits a ban from working in MLS.

My understanding is that Tanner's crimes are more numerous than even reported and that lawyers played a significant role in limiting the scope of the MLS's effort to corroborate the allegations. Remember: MLS originally opened an investigation into Tanner in January of 2025 following an MLSPA complaint that it eventually closed in the fall. Only Pablo's reported prompted the league to look again into Tanner's behavior.

This, from Pablo's original November piece, stands out:

MLS confirmed in its own statement that it received the MLSPA complaint and launched an investigation into the allegations immediately afterward. The Guardian understands that Tanner was never placed on leave after the investigation began in January because MLS couldn’t corroborate the claims against him. The investigation was closed this fall. However, the league told the Guardian in a statement that it had required Tanner to go through a “structured remedial program focused on professional workplace conduct” due to the seriousness of the allegations in the MLSPA complaint, and retains the right to re-open the investigation if more information is brought forward.

MLS already sent Tanner to detention once. Maybe the classes he needs to take by June at the 200-level classes for asshole sports executives?

I don't know that I want to connect them culturally, mostly because so many of the principles at the ownership and executive level have changed, but the Union already have some dark history with a key sporting figure behaving badly. Back in the early years of the club, the Union fired its first head coach Peter Nowak for mistreating players. He hasn't worked in MLS since.

Tanner's short statement is just as bad as you'd probably expect.

Ernst Tanner's statement: "I regret the impact that this situation has had on the Philadelphia Union organization and its supporters. I remain proud of my work with the Philadelphia Union and look forward to my return and future work with the team.”

— Philadelphia Soccer Now (@phlsoccernow.bsky.social) March 16, 2026 at 3:50 PM

Zero responsibility taken ("this situation"), zero apologies given.

MLS Week 4

Rapid fire MLS thoughts after Week 4:

1. Miami prioritizing the second leg of the Concacaf Champions Cup tie with Nashville meant Charlotte missed out on getting a glimpse of Lionel Messi. It also speaks to the importance of breaking out of the MLS ecosystem for Inter Miami and Jorge Mas. The trip to the White House brought back to the fore an idea that went missing from the discussion around Inter for awhile: Jorge Mas's soccer club is as much a political project as it is a sporting one. Winning on the international stage pushes Mas's anti-Castro Cuba politics into new spaces; winning the CCC not only gets Miami into the next Club World Cup, it bolsters Mas's efforts to get his club into Conmebol competitions.
2. The Revs dropped 6 on FC Cincinnati, which is absolutely wild and probably a mirage result for both sides. New England isn't 5 goals better than an FC Cincinnati team that beat Tigres 3-0 in the CCC midweek and the FCC isn't 5 goals worse than a rebooting Revolution team that had a -4 goal difference from two league defeats coming into the game. Still, I'm choosing to see the way the Revs went for the kill—with several young and young-ish Americans in the mix—as a positive sign for New England's immediate future.
3. Watching Vancouver demolish Minnesota United on Sunday night was supremely entertaining, for me, a neutral. I suspect it was less fun for Loons fans, who might be wondering if introducing James Rodriguez to this squad is like putting a spoiler on a Volvo. Meanwhile, Brian White makes me so happy with his clever movement and finishing ability. I doubt he's going to make the plane for the USMNT's World Cup squad, but count me among those who think there should always be space for a goalscorer like White in the US setup. Poachers never go out of style.

Ghost Clubs

As mentioned in the last edition, I'm working some extras for Soccer Eagle that might make it worth your while to support the newsletter with a couple of bucks a month. One of those things is ready for a soft-launch: A database of defunct American soccer clubs.

The database is fairly simple and the goal is for it be community-maintained. That's mostly because I know they while none of us can know everything about everything, many of us know a lot about a few things. If you have some dead American soccer club facts buried in your brain somewhere, I want you to share them.

So far the SEDPASCD is up to 100 clubs and I'm almost certain there are some missing. I envision this work-in-progress becoming the go-to repository of these clubs that, while no longer with us, deserve to be remembered. We can add further details, relevant links, and drop in the history of logos, relocations, and stadiums.

I'm not set up to do subs here on Ghost (yet), so for the time being, I''ve created a support level on Ko-Fi to get access to the SEDPASCD and other exclusive content. First, subscribe to Soccer Eagle. Then join the Ko-Fi Soccer Eagle Supporter tier. Boom.

You'll get an email with a link and you can help build out the database and suggest improvements. I'm anxious to get logos uploaded in particular. If there's enough demand, we can set up a Discord server for discussion.

See you next time.