An 18-month MLS season, AFCON in the USA, the merits of the Europa League, and more | Take It or Leave It
Total Soccer Show: USMNT, Champions League, EPL, and more ...
TSS
4.8 • 3.7K Ratings
🗓️ 18 December 2025
⏱️ 39 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
We're once again sorting through your hot takes! We're discussing whether MLS should ditch the idea of a sprint season and instead use an 18-month bridge to a true fall-to-spring calendar, the case for the United States hosting AFCON as World Cup prep for both sides, and how the unique ecosystem of MLS may actually complicate the transition for coaches moving to Europe. We’ll also debate whether the Europa League and Conference League are simply more fun than the Champions League thanks to chaos, atmospheres, and underdogs, before closing with a bold striker take — that Kai Havertz will outscore Viktor Gyökeres this season.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Total Soccer Show and the glorious return of Take It or Leave it! |
| 0:25.1 | The concept is simple. |
| 0:26.6 | You send us your hot takes and we either take them or we leave them. |
| 0:30.4 | On this episode, we're considering Kai Habits' goal scoring credentials, |
| 0:34.4 | an 18-month-long MLS season and holding AFCON in the United States. Hmm. Yes, we said these texts are hot. Here they come. My name's Ryan Bailey. It's the Taylor Rockwell. Hello, Taylor. How are you? I am doing well, Ryan Bailey. I think 18 months, not enough. Let's make it a whole four-year cycle of MLS. One four-year season who says no. It's an interesting thought experiment because soccer technically never ends. So why not just never end the season? Just keep it going. Just have a 400 years. That's not what happens. Yeah. I do still love that question of like, oh, the season's over. Are you guys like, so now you've got a break? It's like, no, no, no, no, no. It gets worse. There's even more games at even more |
| 1:11.5 | disparate times. Fun times, indeed. Hello, Graham Ruthen. How are you? I am, well, I mean, |
| 1:19.4 | hopefully you're better than me, Ryan, because I am ill today. This is going to be a great |
| 1:23.7 | listen experience, so I'm looking forward to that. Taylor is the background noise silencer still |
| 1:29.3 | working on the old edit machine? Because I feel |
| 1:31.4 | like you may be using it today. |
| 1:34.0 | Oh boy. Oh boy. |
| 1:36.0 | That's going to be fun. |
| 1:37.4 | Is it going to fire up both ends in the middle of recording? |
| 1:39.5 | Well, okay. |
| 1:42.0 | Not on an audio medium. |
| 1:44.5 | Maybe on YouTube. Yeah. I hope you're. Maybe on YouTube. |
| 1:45.9 | Yeah. |
| 1:46.3 | I hope you're watching us on YouTube. |
| 1:47.4 | Like and subscribe to see Graham's maladies unfold in real time. |
| 1:52.1 | Patreon.com slash total soccer show, by the way, if you like to support us, you get bonus episodes, bonus video content and access to our Discord server. |
| 2:00.6 | We're all hanging out in there. |
| 2:02.2 | It is sick, but in a different kind of way, Graham, like the cool kids would say. Yeah? I don't think they do say that anymore. I think it's quite boomer coded now. So you've just aides yourself. Do they say it's extra? What did you say your daughter, big back or something, fat back or |
... |
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