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Thank you. Welcome to the Total Soccero!

Welcome to the Total Soccer show and a show where we're checking in with Europe's top leagues at their respective halfway points, all thereabouts.

Are Man City going to defend their Premier League title and can Plucky Luton beat the drop?

How long can Gerona stay in the league a title race?

Is it a two-horse race in Italy?

And can we contain Taylor Rockwell's enthusiasm when we talk about Leverkusen? Let's find out.

My name's Ryan Bailey. Joining me today, the aforementioned Taylor Rockwell.

Ciao, ciao, Taylor. Hello. Yes, no, yes and no, I believe are the answers to all the questions you asked. Okay, that concludes the episode. Let's... Thank you very much, listener, for joining us in this one. Just kidding. False ending. Very good device. Graham Ruffin, how are you? I'm very well, Ryan Bailey. I'm looking forward to talking about all the football we missed when we were off, because it has been a busy month of football across Europe, apart from in Germany, of course, where they have to carve out some time for Manuel Neuer's annual helicopter skiing trip. So this feels like a good time to recap everything that's happening in the big European leagues. I'm hoping Taylor will have a little bit more to say than just yes, no, yes, no. I will. Okay, good. I will. It is funny to me how, like, similar to how concerned I was about NFL players and concussions until I played fantasy football. And then I was like, come on, man, get back out there. We're very concerned about, like, the fitness of players, the minutes they're being asked to play, fixture congestion. And yet when the Bundesliga break happens, I'm like, come on, guys. Like we make jokes about Manuel Nader taking a break. And it's odd how quickly that switch flips. To be fair, we did have a break also, as Graham's noted. Yeah, we're the Bundesliga of football podcasts. We are indeed. Maybe we shouldn't have all gone on that luxury cruise for a couple of weeks.

We should have stuck with the soccer. But anyway, Joe Lowry also joining us, Joe. How are you, my dear?

I'm great. I enjoyed that cruise paid for by Interm Miami and their apparent new shirt sponsor, The Trident, which produced maybe the single greatest TSS out of context quote of all time.

Go check that out on the Discord.

Also, Taylor, thank you for mentioning fantasy football to team me up to say to announce to our audience that cares. Taylor knows what's coming. I won my fantasy football league this year. I will say no more because no one even cared about that. But I had to get it off my chest because I am, of course, a champion. I cared. it was the casual way that you'd be like,

oh yeah, I'm like eight, no or something, no big deal.

Like, it was just like,

don't, don't do that. Don't give it your false modesty, no big deal. We know how big of a deal that is. I crushed it. I destroyed the league. That's what I want. That's what I want. Barely watched football. let's go.

This is easy.

Well done.

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