Hello everybody and welcome to the total soccer show.

I'm Taylor Rockwell.

Daryl Grove will be back tomorrow. For now, I'm going to be talking to Charles Bome. Charles has written about soccer for pretty much every place that pays people to write about soccer. And he's with me today to talk about Burrhalter's latest roster. We go deep on D.C. United's past, a little bit about their present and more about their future. Charles has obviously covered DC United for a good long while, so he's got a lot of expertise there. We get into the financial state of the league and a whole lot more. If you don't know Charles, I promise you he's terrific. And if you do know Charles, then you already know he's terrific. So there's not much else for me to say, aside from over to me talking to Charles Bome. With me now on the line, making his Total Soccer Show debut, I believe, is a freelance writer, editor based in D.C. His work has appeared on high press, on high press soccer, MLS Soccer, USS Players.com, pro-Soccurysa, many, many, many sites. It's Mr. Charles Bome. Charles, thank you so much for coming on the show. It is a pleasure to be here, Taylor. And I think, I could be wrong, but I think I've been on before, but it might well have been like half a decade ago because that's how long we've all been doing this damn thing. Wow. So would that have been with Daryl or with a group of people?

I feel like I phoned in to both of you guys.

Oh, wow. All right.

To talk to both you guys. But honestly, like, we're talking about sands of time, vague, misty recollections. I could be wrong.

So I think I, do you guys have friends of the pod? I feel like I deserve friends of the pod, that's at least.

I mean, I think.

We come out to your shows and stuff, but now when I can. I mean, well, let's let's go there for a moment because that is definitely true. We did the live show at Outie Field. Charles was just there. Charles is just there hanging out supporting the team. and then I don't know if you would love this on record,

but I'm going to go ahead and put it on record.

Charles is also the one who, like, when we were at Allstar, was like,

so are we going out, guys? support in the uh the team and then uh i don't know if you would love this on record but i'm

going to go ahead put it on record charles is also the one who like when we were at all star was

like so we going out guys or what what's going on here like charles keeps that night going in a very

very positive way and for that i'm very thankful so thank you for that charles networking activities

are very important in this industry there it is you're you actually, like that's totally true and not something, like a little view behind the curtain for people.

Is that like, Darrell and I never knew that?

Like, until we went to the convention in Philly, the coaches convention in Philly when they were doing the elections and the candidates were doing their speeches.

We never did any events.

And it is totally true that going to events, you meet the people that you read day in and day out, and you'll, you meet people that are, like, involved in the soccer community. And it really does help. So, yeah, if you can go and have drinks with Charles, I strongly suggest you do so. I guess you can't do that very well. But other people should have drinks with Charles. and Charles is right that networking is very important. But I wanted to talk to Charles about a variety of topics today. If you are a stick to sports person, we may cover some ground that you don't love, but I'm fine with that. And I'm going to start with something that people may not love, may find particularly divisive. Charles, you have Giassizardez in your starting 11 for the USA-Mexico game, and I'd like you to defend yourself. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. Now, the tweet was very clear, Taylor. I worded it, I worded it, I worded it very clearly and carefully in order to head off this type of bogus questioning.

I know. I will not have this.

I will not allow you to take the conversation down this cold sack.

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