Hello and welcome everybody to the Total Soccer Show.

My name is Taylor Rockwell, and today it's MLS Cup Day.

We've got a wild final game to review.

Congratulations to NYCFC for emerging victorious on the road at Portland in a penalty shootout with me today of sorts since he is across

the country, but still with me in spirit, to make sense of everything we just saw. And maybe some

stuff we didn't is our temporary man in Portland. It's Joe Lowry. Joe, good to have you on the

show. How soaked are you? Have you managed to avoid the rain? Yes, I have managed to avoid the rain.

I was underneath an overhang to actually actually watch this game which was great because that means i didn't get nearly as wet

as a bunch of the players out on the field did but uh i am very cold taylor i'm not built for this

what is this 45 degree weather i don't know what's going on my hands and feet my feet are numb

right now my hands are i think are one step closer to thawing out. But no, I've been chilly, man, but it's all worth it to have been here to see this game, to be TSS's Portland correspondent. It has been a blast, and this game was insane. So we're going to, I want to talk about what it was like to be there, the atmosphere, the buildup, the delay. But first, we should just start with congrats to NYCFC for the win. I think they look like the better team overall, and they prove their medal in the shootout. Joe, you've watched a lot of MLS this season, certainly more than I. Are they worthy champions in your eyes? Yes, 100% yes.

I don't know that the playoffs were quite up to their standard, to be totally honest, in terms of the on-field play and the consistency or lack thereof.

But a lot of that stuff just happens when you get to the postseason.

You run up against weird things like the Philadelphia Union, minus 11 players, but they're still playing and executing their game plan well.

Jim Curtin had that team executing in the Eastern Conference final. You run into Atlanta United in round one. That is always a little bit of a wild card. You have to play against the England Revolution in the second round. So you run into these challenges, and NYCFC have had challenges, just as the Portland Timbers have had challenges. but on the whole, when you look at the whole regular season plus the playoffs, yes, NYCFC are worthy of this result. They are worthy of this game. And Taylor, another great reason why I think it made sense for them to win this game was we got to see Ronnie Dylis strip all the way down to his underwear right in front of the NYCFC faithful. This was just bonkers, man.

I did want to ask you about that one.

How was that experience?

Did you know it was coming?

Were you prepared for the strip show that followed?

I was prepared, and we were texting a bit about this in our WhatsApp group chat with

Graham and Ryan, too.

And Graham had mentioned it happening potentially before the game, saying something about how maybe Portland fans were going to get more than they bargained for in this particular post match. But yeah, you could sort of get the feeling that it was coming. I was right next to all the NYCFCOA fans. And they started chanting Ronnie, Ronnie, Ronnie. And at that point, I don't think he had any other choice. I think when he joined this team, if I remember correctly, way back when he started to be the head coach of NYCFC, he said if we win Silverware, if we win MLS Cup, I'll be doing that. And by that, I mean exactly the same thing he did when he was coaching a previous stop, stripping all the way down to his underwear, to avoid relegation that time. This time it wasn't to avoid relegation, but instead to

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