Hello everybody and welcome to the total soccer show. I'm your host Taylor Rockwell. No Daryl Grove

with me. He should be back in studio tomorrow.

But instead, I'm going to be talking about some slightly difficult topics with Mr. Leander

Charlochans of Yahoo Sports, also a lecturer at Marist College. We're going to be getting into Serginio

Des. There was some news today about his sort of decision to play for the Netherlands of the United States.

It's not bleak, don't worry, U.S. fans, but it's not like the best news either.

It's somewhere in between.

But we get into that and kind of what may influence his decision.

Then we kind of focus primarily on an article theander recently wrote for Yahoo about sort of racism in Sariaa,

why there seemed to be so many more instances of it this season and why it sort of hasn't been dealt with

the sort of logic behind the failure to deal with it and how it allows Italian officials to

continue to not deal with it.

And we close out by talking about sports journalism in the modern era.

So again, maybe those aren't the most lighthearted of topics, but I would say they are the most useful and necessary topics to be discussed. And Leander does so with a plum. I'm not sure what that word means, but I'm pretty sure it means with grace and skill, and that's what he used. So without further ado, I'll turn it over to me asking questions to Leander Charlochans of Yahoo Sports. Joining me on the other end of the line, I've got Leander Charlochans of Yahoo Sports and a lecturer at Marist College. Leander, thank you for taking the time to chat today. And did I get that name roughly right to the pronunciation thereof? You got it magnificently, right? All right. I'm very glad to make my debut appearance. Yeah, I'm surprised it's been so long because I think we first met way back when Charlie Davies was playing for DC United and you were writing features about him. But that was very brief. That was when I think we were only like one day a week and still on the radio here in Richmond. Different times, but we've got still got like familiar things to talk about with potential Americans abroad and the U.S. national times, but we've still got familiar things to talk about with potential

Americans abroad and the U.S. national team, but then also some more pressing issues from

today like racism in Italy. So we've got some big topics to discuss. But I did want to start

a little bit with your background, because your Marist College bio explains that Leander was born in the Netherlands, grew up in

Belgium, went to college in London, attended graduate school in Washington, D.C. I'm going to say

that that puts you in a fairly solid position to discuss Serginio Dest. You tweeted out a translation

of some comments made by him earlier today. It sounds like maybe he hasn't actually made up his

decision.

Yeah, that's kind of how I'm reading it. I mean, honestly, and I tweeted sort of through my thoughts a few days ago as well, you know, all things being equal, if he's sort of on

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