Hello Sunshine, I'm Alexi Lollis and welcome to the State of the Union

podcast when we look at the beautiful game on and off the field through the lens of

red white and blue-colored glasses. All right, so this week we'll be talking about what can only be described as the craziness and the wonderful craziness that is the

MLS playoffs. We'll be looking at all the goals and the referee decisions and the shootouts and the mayhem and the chaos that is

MLS playoffs. We'll also be doing a European roundup but we'll be talking a little bit of obviously

EPL and going on over there and Ebra, Liverpool,

Aland. We'll be talking about what else? Some Balushi talk and some hummingbird talk we'll get to that too but first

joining me as always my friend my colleague and my guiding light David Mossy a soccer savant and a fox soccer researcher and writer extraordinary.

Mossy, how are you on this Monday, November 23rd in the year 2020 and before you answer I would just like to remind everybody of

David Massey's affinity and love and support and steadfastness in terms of that support of the

Wolverines of the University of Michigan.

Massey, how are you?

I am doing well. I don't know how many games Michigan is going to win this season, but they won the one game I absolutely needed them to win for my sanity this past weekend.

So your Wolverines of Michigan took on my Scarlet Knights of Exit Nine off the turnpike over there

in Jersey.

Now please correct me if I'm wrong. I get most of my information from Rob Stone, so it could very well be wrong. He could just be telling me stuff. But when the season started, when it came to Rutgers as is kind of normal,

we didn't have great expectations,

although when we started off and we beat,

who was it, Michigan State,

everyone thought everything was going to be great, and you know, we've kind of reverted to the mean and we're still Rutgers right so we're a proverbial punching bag if you will for some bigger clubs out there as opposed to Michigan where there's always an expectation that they're going to be around.

That notion was quickly dispelled early on and so you get up against Rutgers and once again

even Rutgers in 2020 is a game that you should win.

...