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Learn more at vertexinck.com. Hello, Hello and welcome everybody to the Total Soccer Show.

My name is Taylor Rockwell, and I am excited to spend this episode getting back to our roots,

which of course means worrying about the USM&T ahead of a major international competition.

The World Cup is 18 days away, I believe. Could have that wrong, but I think that's it. The U.S. roster will be released next Wednesday. We know many of the names that will be on there. We have expectations of several more. Maybe there'll be a surprise or two. You never know. Obviously, we will have a show next week breaking down that roster and a live reaction show over on the BR app. Joe Lowry are the nerves setting in because they are for me. Yeah, the nerves are in, Taylor. And you're right. There's nothing that is closer to the heart of our identity as people around and in the U.S. Soccer, Meds National Team's sphere than anxiety and worry about the team and just angst about, man, about every little nook and cranny of this program. It's real, Taylor. And it has fully set in for me, especially because everybody's injured right now, except Gio Raina, weirdly, for some reason. I don't know how that happened. I don't know where we are right now. Taylor, it's good to be back and it's good to worry with someone instead of by myself on a corner. Thank you. I appreciate that. It's good to have you back, Joe.

I do feel like we maybe had a deal with the devil situation in which we had to get Gio Rain a healthy. Somebody made a deal and in exchange, every other player did get injured. A little bit. At least Gio is there. That makes me happy. Joe, as I said, it's nice to talk to you. It's good to have you back. We haven't heard from you in a little bit.

You did the listener questions show with Ryan.

But in terms of talking about nerves and anxiousness, I'm assuming the reason you were absent was maybe slightly more anxiety-inducing, although maybe it went smoothly. I don't know. I mean, a little bit of both. So I got married. That's what Taylor's living too. I got married about a week ago now. So that was incredibly exciting. Took some time off afterwards for our trip after the wedding and had a great time both on our vacation in Mexico and with the wedding itself. Saw my now wife's extended family, met some folks on her side of the family that I had never met before because we're not from the same place. And just had a really wonderful time with friends and family. Taylor, before the wedding, you were telling me like, yeah, this is one of the only times in your life that, like, you'll have all of your friends and family and extended family and people in the same place. And I was thinking about that all in the day and really enjoying that bit. Like, it was a really special time with with her obviously and, you know, both of our families and friends and just really a blast. So I was thankful to have that opportunity, super excited for what's next for us, and just nice to have a little bit of time away and now getting back into the swing of things, baby. What was the, what was the first dance? How did it go? Did you have it choreographed or was it all improvised?

First dance was good. It was to a Michael Blay song, which I feel like is a classic, right? Michael Blay does have songs that are not Christmas, so it worked out well. I didn't know that. That's good to know. We choreographed it a little bit, but neither one of us are very good at dancing. So it was like very light choreography, but honestly I thought it went well. People didn't like point and laugh at us,

which is good. So that means, very light choreography. But honestly, I thought it went well.

People didn't like point and laugh at us, which is good. So that means, you know, we didn't get any rotten fruit thrown at us either. So I would assume, Taylor, that we'd done all right. I mean, yeah, I think if you get rotten fruit thrown at you at a wedding, something is going wrong. At your own wedding. You've done really poorly. Or you're getting married in medieval times or something along with the minds.

Was it up-tempo song or slow song? It was a slower song. And if you can't tell, I am very much shrilling to remember what the name of it is. Oh, it's all good. That's good. You don't have to. You could just add the air of mystery. We could pretend like you just want to keep that to yourself. It is a mystery. Okay, my gut was right.

It was you and I by Michael Blay.

And it was, it was lovely, we had a good time.

I'm a Michael Blay, you know, outside sort of fan, so I enjoy a good bubble song now and then. We had fun. We had a really good time. It was a blast. Good to see all the folks that were there. And again, just, yeah, super, super excited and thankful for everything that's coming up.

Yeah, man. And for listeners who are surprised by this news, I should add that, like, we knew Joe was engaged. He hadn't talked much about it. And then in typical Joe, like, humble fashion, I think a couple weeks ahead was like, oh, by the way, like I need, you know, a week off. I'm getting married., I'll be back right away. Like, it was definitive Joe.

So I'm happy you took the time to get married. I'm happy you enjoyed yourself. And I'm very happy you're back to talk. MLS. We've got the MLS Cup coming up. Then we've got the World Cup roster, the World Cup looming. Lots to be discussed, Joe. And so to ease some of our nerves, or maybe make them worse, we'll see.

We're going to get back to Americans in action.

We had a few people requesting the return of this segment. And I'm happy to get back into it because there have been Americans doing varying things in varying leagues. We're going to talk about seven or eight of them, six to eight of them. We'll see how time goes. Let's start with Mr.

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