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

My name is Joe Lowry.

We've got a two-man game, one twoing all the way down the field today, to look back at the

MLS playoff action so far.

We have six games to discuss, and oh, by the way, a ton of news from teams outside the

playoff field as well.

To help me break all of this stuff down, I am joined by the one, the only Jeff Ruder, Jeff. How are you, man? Nice to see you. I'm good. I'm back. It's great. And I'm back to writing. If I could be shameless here, off the top for just a second. I have a substack now, and it's called Five Asides, and I have absolutely no idea what I can promise you is a cadence or a format, but it's up, and I did my playoff predictions there. And, yeah, after 43 days without writing, it feels really good to do that again. So in a better way overall, I would say. Good. I am glad. I have read Jeff's piece.

I have also subscribed to the substack.

You all should be doing the exact same thing.

It's true.

I thought, Jeff, that your, I thought that your playoff preview was excellent.

And the good news for listeners is because there were no games on Saturday, you can still go read it.

And it's still really relevant, this whole playoff thing, not just because of the series idea, but because there are still two games left to be played to open round one of the postseason. It's stretched out quite a bit, Jeff. But, I mean, for you, now back in your writing boots, that does give your piece of sort of longevity that we crave in modern society. So I imagine you're grateful for that. I am. Yeah, the format actually does me some favors for shelf life that too, too seldom do we see in this 24-hour news cycle

economy of America. So yeah, no, I'll take it. It works really well. And if you believe it, I've found new

gripes about the format since I wrote that piece. So we'll get into those as the games show you what

frustrates me. But yeah, it's still just such a bizarre, bizarre idea to do this best of three to me. Because it's like it's like when you are watching like a grizzled 33 year old step up for a penalty and they're doing that like really slow stroll strut up, whatever. And it's taking forever and you're like, you know better than this, just get on with it. That's what it feels like right now. From Decision Day to the 35 days later when the second round of the playoffs happen, it just feels like one big stutter step penalty. I maintain that there are real problems of the current playoff format. Those problems will be solved, I think largely when MLS changes this calendar and they

don't have a giant international break right after the best of three. I'm still enjoying the best of three. I like it. I think it builds time for our narratives. We've gone through this plenty in the past, so I will at least park it here for now. We're going to get through all of the games so far and we're going to look around the league for new. So let's get right to it, Jeff. Minnesota United.

We're going to go in reverse chronological order

because we want to give you

the most relevant games first because that's just who we are here at the Total Soccer show. Minnesota United Nile, Seattle Sounders Nill, but Minnesota United winning 3-2 in penalties. Jeff, this game was last night. I watched it this morning because I wanted to have it as fresh in my mind as possible. When did you wake up? Too early. Too early. Taylor was sending videos of himself in a dinosaur suit in our in our group chat and there was just so much going on. I couldn't. It was like Chris this morning. Jeff, you were at this game last night, Allianz. I was. I'm curious. What was the environment like? Did this match play out like you expected?

it. A little bit. It's actually really interesting because I think coming into this series, this much like Charlotte, New York City, which has not yet kicked off, is a series that a lot of people

looked at, including ourselves, and said this is going to be one of the more like kind of cagey

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