Hi, I'm Grant Wall, and welcome to the Planet Football Podcast.

We're back on the two episode a week schedule.

Today, S.I.S. Brian Strauss joins me to talk about this week's MLS Cup final,

the greatest teams in MLS history by year and era, and what ingredients

make for a good Cup final?

I'll tell some of my favorite Clint Dempsey and Drew Carey's stories, and we get into the World Cup draw and the intricacies

of Brian's Twitter bio. Before we get started, if you enjoy the podcast you can do us a huge

favor by subscribing, liking, and giving us a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get this

podcast.

That gives us a boost on the charts and we need to get our numbers up. Joining me now is Sports Illustrated's Brian Strauss. Brian, how are you? How was your weekend?

Hey man, it was all right, a little more exciting than the usual napping on the couch. I went to a three-year-old's

birthday party. Nice. Aed all the food. Was the most poorly behaved person there.

Cops had to be called a couple times.

It was standard.

I'm imagining you giving the hysema to some three-year-old at the food table.

Yeah, remember, maybe it's like George

Kestanza like pushing the kids out of the way when he thinks there's a fire like I

want the cake you know give me. My birthday this weekend was kind of fun actually. I turned 44 and I was having

birthday dinner with my wife out in Charleston, West Virginia of all places. She's

working as a doctor out there for a couple of weeks and

my phone starts blowing up toward the end of dinner.

Well you ruin your own birthday dinner man. Pretty much. Actually, though, I should say, toward the end of dinner, I would not have picked up if this was

...