Welcome to USMENTYWZMENT.

Welcome to USMNT Weekly, your one-stop shot for discussion of American soccer on the biggest stage.

Today, we're looking ahead to 2026, and we are building our dream US rosters for the World Cup.

My name's Ryan Bailey joining me today.

It's someone as American as a bald eagle riding a jet ski while eating a corn dog. It's Taylor Rockwell. Hello, Taylor. That should be the American flag. That should be the new crest of the United States. And it might well be soon. We'll see how it goes. Hello, Ryan Bailey. Thank you for having me here. Thank you for joining us, Taylor. That was the three most American things I could think of, so I group them together. I hope that's okay.

I feel like a corn dog is a good thing for Americans to export around the world. Everybody loves pig and fried things. So what could go wrong?

Also joining us, Graham Rutherland. I don't know what a corn dog is, Graham, do you?

Is that like an animal? What is that? No, I'm not entirely sure, right. Could you do an explainer for me, please? Maybe Joe Lowry can. Hello, Joe. Yeah, corn dogs are great. You guys both need to have as many as you can between now and when you die. Also, I don't think it's just us doing the corn dogs. I think Korea does a mean corn dog as well. I don't know. I feel like in some ways this is actually harmful to our brand as a country more so than it is helpful. What I will say is, I'm just going to, this whole day, I'm pretending that today is yesterday. Because if we done this show yesterday, we would have been exactly 500 days away from the start of the 2026 World Cup.

That's seamless planning. We definitely didn't do that on accident. And we're definitely pretending it's Monday. We're just celebrating the 499 days until the World Cup anniversary today. That's all we're doing, Joe. Correct. Yeah. I've got two-shirts on the way to all of you guys. That is absolutely terrified that it's only 499 days to the World Cup.

When I was younger, it felt like lifetimes would pass between World Cups and now they come too quickly. Like, can we push it back a year, please, FIFA? It is really strange, though, that it's more than a year away, it's more than a year and a half away or about a year and half away. And yet it also feels like it's right around the corner. And it is a strange one when you then look at the roster, how much would have to happen for certain players between now and the summer of 2026 for them to make a jump. It narrows the pool a little bit. But I am excited to be here. I am excited to talk about not just corn dogs, but also the roster. There you go. We have fewer days than Gordon Joseph Levitt had of summer in that movie with Zoe Dashnell. That was a bad reference. Let's keep going, shall we? Proclaimers was the way to go there, Ryan. I would go 500 days. Don't it. It was the reference. Graham's right, as always. Very good. Graham, we should investigate corn dogs further. But in the meantime, let's... You put a Cheeto in the ground, you pour mountain dew on it, and in six months a corn dog grows. That's how the pogroms did it, right? Yep. I think so. Yeah. Yeah, very good. Joe, you mentioned I should have as many as I can until the day I die. Well, that day comes sooner if I have many corn dogs. Absolutely, but the days will be richer, literally, and maybe more figuratively.

Are you meant to dip corn dogs in something? Because I've only had a corn dog once, and it was so dry. It was so unbelievably dry. I meant to dip it in something, honey mustard or something like that. I would say ketchup. I would say, Gran, this is the land of the free and the home of the brave. You eat your corn dog however you want big dog. Set a pace.

What that's fine. Although, I mean, Joe, he's got me here. If you had like a breakfast sausage, like a maple breakfast sausage, don't you worry about that. Oh, yeah. Dipped in syrup? Okay. No, the moment it left Graham's lips, I was on board with that. What I'm hearing here is... McGreddle? What you guys told me was bad, so we're coming full circle here. It is bad. It is bad. It is bad. It sounds too Scottish for me. It's bad and good.

Yeah. I think McGreddle might be playing right back for us pretty soon. We will see. We will see. All right. Patreon.com slash total soccer show is where you can get our bonus content. We've got some USMNT transfer talk coming to the feed and much more on TSS Plus. Do join us there. Patreon.com slash Total Soccer show. Also access to our Discord server. All of the cool kids are hanging out. They may be putting Taylor's Big Dog, you eat your corn dog, however you like, Lion, on a certain channel in there. We shall see. Time will stop it. Breaking the rules here. Too much context. We're also on YouTube. Check us out on YouTube if you want to see our beautiful faces talking about the USM and T rosters and much more. Graham is striking a pose as we speak. You'll know that if you're watching on YouTube. All right. Graham, you can put the shirt back on, though. That's all right.

Okay, thanks.

Thanks.

I've been in the gym.

I was feeling good about myself, Joe. Keep it off, Graham. Keep it off. As Joe mentioned, 499 days until the start of the World Cup. 499 days till our president welcomes folks from nations all over the world who are coming to the US to work,

something he's quite famous for.

Of course.

Looking forward to that one.

But let's get into the rosters. I've actually

had ChatGPT lay out the roster. Maybe I should, I could lead with that if you like, or we could

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