Hello,

Hello, everybody, and welcome to the Total Soccer Show.

My name is Taylor Rockwell, and it's a Tuesday, which means, as always, it's time to talk some Major League Soccer.

We do not have Jeff Ruder here with us this week to talk about the MLS Eastern Conference,

but we do have the man

himself who's excited to give the MVP award, the All-Star Award to Guillermo another four

times. It's Joe Lowry. Hello, Joe. Man, the guy hosts one show. He makes one mistake. Everybody

knows about it. Everybody's talking about it. No, that's totally deserved. That was a faux

paw on my part. I mean, maybe, maybe a five paw. Like it was really something you shouldn't be doing. That is, that I can say for sure. You did a wonderful job, my friend, so much so that I'm very nervous for this episode, even before I knew that Jeff wasn't going to be here, because you did a lot of heavy lifting. Your transitions were flawless, and mine are going to be the opposite of flawless.

I'm fairly certain.

But I am excited to be here to talk about the Eastern Conference thus far.

We've got the randomized order.

We're going to go through talk about their grade, what they've done, maybe their all-star

candidate or the most likely all-star candidate.

Before we do that,

Joe Lowry, I should acknowledge I was not on the show yesterday. I got a very bad poke in the eye during a game on Sunday, which seems like no big deal. I felt really like lame messaging you

all and saying, like, hey, I don't think I can record, but went to the eye doctor yesterday and

learned that I had a fingernail-sized scratch in my eyeball and a, according to the doctor, chunk of the eye missing.

You're welcome for that, listeners. I'm sure that was a fun visual for you all. I really apologize. That was probably way too much information. I'm mostly just bringing it up to say that if I suddenly have to start wearing sunglasses or squinting at the camera,

that would be why. So I'm not just a dude wearing sunglasses inside. I'm also, I guess I am

a dude doing that, but I'm a dude doing it for medical reasons, Joe, and that makes it okay?

It really does. I mean, so first of all, listeners, I think we all are already thankful for Taylor

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