Hello,

Hello, everybody, and welcome to a weekend edition of the Total Soccer Show.

My name is Taylor Rockwell, and if we're recording on a weekend, we have planned poorly,

or there's been a big result in that second one is the case this time round.

We do have an MLS Cup champion for the year 2025. Inter Miami, the plucky

young upstarts, found a way to get the win. We all, I think, sort of saw this coming, but

thought it could be an open game, an interesting game, a fascinating game, and in a lot of ways

it was. But in the end, we do have Inter-Miamy slash David Beckham and Jorge

Moss and the Moss brothers crowned champions. They were central during the celebrations. Joe Lowry,

opening thoughts on this one. Did you enjoy? Oh, I very much enjoyed this game. I think it lived up

to my expectations for it. I had a blast watching it. And, you know, I wanted to shout out Miami fans. Many Miami fans waited all months for this, right? I mean, they've waited so long to get this title. They waited since the beginning of December to get this job done. Congrats to them. Congrats to Miami. I can't tell if that was shade. That sounded a little bit less shade. It was intended to be shade. Yeah. Not to all Miami fans. I'm sure there are some born and raised Fort Lauderdaleites, Fort Lauderdal Dalians, Fort Lauderd. Something. You know, those people, I'm sure, have been around and they are diehards. I don't want to disparage them, but I'm also sure many Miami fans, they didn't have to wait long did that? No, they did not. And I'm not disparaging them either. This is more just a parental observation. The opening

shot of the crowd, I believe shot on an iPhone. I don't know if anybody else picked up on that when they said it multiple times. I got to be honest. I thought that was kind of cool. I liked it. I did like that it did look like significantly worse than shot on an actual camera to me. It was pretty clear that it was cutting to a phone, but still amazing technology, still a cool idea. But I enjoy the front row. It was like the capos and the drummers with their kids around them. And I was like, man, that's, I guess what you got to do. You get them in early. You get them really into it, you get them at the championship game, they're going to be up for this one.

And literally the next time they cut to that crowd 10 minutes later, they were all on screens, sitting down, not watching the game. We're maybe watching the highlights, but either way, I was like, oh, it's universal. Okay, no matter what, kids these days, children are going to get bored. Yes, kids these days, Jeff Ruder, kids these days.

Yes, of course.

But first, I also want to start the episode by thanking the TSS hosting union for ensuring that if you had to record on a weekend, at least two of the four of you got the day off. So Graham, Ryan, you're welcome. They're always very good about like, no, we don't want to break up your rhythm. You all, you know, you guys have such good MLS knowledge.

Well, Jeff and Joe do, and then Taylor's also there.

That seems to be the usual vibe. And I'm glad we haven't broken that up now. But also, it's just been a fun season of talking MLS with you, too. So I'm excited to get to talk about this final game, which always to me felt, especially with the way Miami

were playing, like it was going to be a tough task for Vancouver. And I think that they made some

smart changes. They played very well. They got the goal. They made it dramatic for a moment. But in

the end, it's obviously inter Miami. And I think for me has been that I don't know how much these players, or I didn't know how much these players, like, truly care about this.

I couldn't tell if it was just like, ah, you know, it's a fun farewell, we're kicking around, I'm getting a paycheck, it's great.

But Mascherano and Jordi Alba specifically, their level of emotion and reaction and Machirano sprinting onto the field for the second and third goals.

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