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

My name is Taylor Rockwell.

It is a Tuesday, October 1st.

Happy, very early Halloween to you listeners.

And to you, Joe Lowry, who was here with me to answer some USM&T questions and some MLS questions.

I am very excited.

Ooh. No, it totally passed me by that we hit October already. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know what happened to September, although we did have, I know the Cardinal Rule, Taylor of podcasting, and we've talked about this before many times. I'm going to break it right now, is to never talk about the weather because it makes it seem like you don't have anything else to talk about. Taylor and I had a lovely pre-show conversation that was just not recorded. We talked about all sorts of things. We are going to talk about all sorts of things. Taylor, in downtown Phoenix on Saturday, I was out of the Phoenix Rising game. Boom, not just about weather. Suck it. It was 117 degrees in downtown Phoenix. 117 on September 28th.

Balmy?

Why do we exist?

I give you permission in Phoenix, specifically.

I give you permission to make more fun of the desert than you ever have.

This is the time to do it.

It was a record.

It was stupid.

I hated it.

I know it has become cliche to the point of being a joke. But my question for you is a dry heat though, right? A 117 dry heat though? Yeah, it was tolerable. Like they could play a soccer game in Phoenix between Phoenix Rising and Las Vegas Lights on Saturday. Did they have to take not one but two water breaks per half? Yes, they did. Yes, they very much did. It was horrible. That is fair,

but I will tell you this. When we were living in northern Iraq, where it got up to like 120 on

some days, I never understood the idea of the dry heat until it's 120 degrees and then you walk

into the shade and you are no longer hot because there's zero humidity.

So once you're in the shade, once you're into air conditioning, it can be much more tolerable. That presumes, of course, that there is any sort of shade in a giant open soccer pitch, which I'm guessing there is less of. I remember Joe thinking, like, I will never complain about heat again. This is the most oppressive heat ever. and then we went back to Istanbul on our way back to the States

and we had like a 24 hour layover.

I think it was 85 degrees, but with maximum humidity. Yep. And I could not stop sweating. And that was so much, so much more annoying. So I'm sure 117 is not the most fun. But like, at least it wasn't 100 with humidity. Correct. Correct. The slap in the face is just that it was the end of September and that that was still happening. So I'm hoping that now that we are trending towards playoffs and October window for USM&T and all this kind of stuff that we are going to end up in a better spot. Last, you know, sweat related topic, I hope for today. No, I think I got one. You mentioned the humidity. Okay, fair enough. You're talking about the humidity to tie to the USM&T, which we will talk about on today's show. When I was in Atlanta for the U.S. Panama game in the Cop America this summer, I was taking public transportation from where I was. It was the night of the debate, so I wasn't trying to mess with any of that stuff. Yeah. I was taking public transport from where I was staying in my Airbnb just kind of outside of downtown into Mercedes-Benz, and I have my backpack on and, like, you know, dress fairly well for the game. And it is so hot and so humid. And there is zero breeze. And I'm waiting for the bus. And I kind of thought I was going to pass out. Like I was pacing

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