Hello, everybody, and welcome to the total soccer show. I am Taylor Rockwell. Daryl Grove is still in Boston. I'll be talking to him later tonight, which would be Wednesday night if you're listening to this after the fact, about Greg Barthor's latest U.S. men's national team roster. For now, I'm going to be joined by Matt Doyle of MLS soccer fame. He wrote a great piece about the team focusing on the arrival of young players, so you should definitely check that out. In this show, we talked about the roster, the U.S. Open Cup, the MLS playoff race, and a whole bunch of other stuff, definitely an enjoyable time and an enjoyable conversation. Before I get to that, a little bit of info about the roster itself. Burrhalter called up 26 players for the USA's upcoming friendlies with Mexico and Uruguay.

Michael Bradley, Josi Altador, Omar Gonzalez were left off so that they could play for Toronto because they have MLS games over the international break because Major League Soccer. DeAndre Yedlin, Matt Miaska, Tim Wea, DeAndre Yedlin, D'Andre Yedlin, Dwayne, Homes, all missing due to various degrees of injury.

And according to a report by Paul Tenoreo for the Athletic,

Darlington Nagby turned down a chance to play for the team, reportedly did the same thing for the Gold Cup.

So that's where things stand there.

Here's the roster as it currently exists.

Four goalkeepers called up, Jesse Gonzalez of FC Dallas, Brad Guzano, Atlanta

United, Sean Johnson, NYCFC, and Zach Stephan of Fortuna Dusseldorf. In terms of defenders,

we've got John Brooks, Reggie Cannon, Sergino Dest, everybody breathe a side of relief there.

Nick Lima, Aaron Long, Daniel Levitts, Tim Ream, Miles Robinson, and Walker Zimmerman.

So about what we expected given the lengthy list of injuries.

In midfield, Sebastian Leggett, Weston McKinney, Alfredo Morales, he returns. Also of Fortuna Dusseldorf, I should add, Paxton Pomacall, Christian Roldon, Willtrap, and Jackson Yule. And then interestingly, when we get to our forwards, Christian Polisic, listed as a forward alongside Corey Baird, Tyler Boyd, Jordan Morris, Josh Sargent, and Jossi Zardez. So 26 players in there, we'll see if any get added or any get dropped. But right now, that's where things stand. And right now, with all that said, I'm going to turn it over to me talking to Matt Doyle. With me now, I've got my friend and yours, Mr. Matthew Doyle.

Hi, Matt.

Thank you very much for taking the time to talk to me about all things U.S. soccer today.

Oh, it is always my genuine pleasure to talk to you.

See, it started off genuine, and then it went sarcastic, and now I don't know what to think anymore.

That's just my voice, but i really can't help it see again it sounds like you're rolling your eyes even as you say that um but i mean i mean it sincerely what i say we're going to talk all things u.s soccer because we're going uh u.s national team we're going to talk a little u.s open cup we're going to talk major league soccer i I feel like we're rounding it out well. Apologies to USL and Nisa and all those things. But everything else we'll get to today if that works for you. Yeah, let's do it. But first, I want to talk to you about your dietary preferences. Because in Orlando, we caught up with you. We had tacos. It was very good. but you seem to find one of the best restaurants in Orlando fairly quickly, and that is saying something. Is that a thing you do

whenever you travel? Do you go out and actively look for the good local food, or do you just

sort of know the style of cuisine you like and look for that? Oh, I go out and I look for the good local food. That is always my thing

when I travel. I'm embarrassed by the fact that I'm still mostly a monogloat. You know, I have a little

bit of Spanish and I'm working at getting more. But it's hard to, and most of my travel outside of

the U.S. or into inner cities in the U.S., it tends to be towards the Spanish-speaking enclaves.

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