Welcome to another special edition of the State of the Union Pod. We have a special guest.

I mean, let's just call it what it is. We have a legend when it comes to Major League soccer and American Soccer in our midst.

Diego Valery, the man, the myth, the legend, 34 years young, but just a wonderful soccer

player and an even better human being is joining us here on the state of the Union pod.

Welcome, first off, welcome, how are you doing in 2021?

Both as a soccer player and just as the human being.

Thank you for the introduction.

Alexi I'm happy, happy to be back for trainings, for a new season,

you know, exciting. We have an international cup to play, which is always attractive for me as this age.

And, yeah, you know, just preparing well for that game.

What did you learn last year? You know, sometimes when we compare and contrast, I never went through a year like last year as a player, so what did you and the other players learn in

20 given all the incredible challenges on and off the field? A lot of things of

course to be more united those you those moments where we were very you know unstable because nobody

knew what's going to happen you know where when it was going to to be like the competition and all the stuff and then all the

experience we have in Orlando was amazing for us as a group and then we improved a lot as a team from it, right, getting, you know, like a pre-season in quarantine.

And then from that, the group grew up a lot as a team improved in so many areas and we ended playing a very good soccer at the end of the regular season and you know we we learn with our own experience that in soccer you can lose everything in one ball.

So that will happen in Dallas against Dallas.

So I think this group is, it's been amazing last year and it was a year where we,

where we got a lot of learning from it.

And, you know, as a group, this precision you would see that the team is is solid

outside the field and inside the field and in every training so I'm very

exciting about it. Well look you've been around for basically the last decade here and as I mentioned you are a major league soccer legend you are a Portland timber's legend you are a Portland the city of Portland legend. So where were you when you first heard the two words Portland Oregon?

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