Welcome to the Big Thing on Total Soccer Show, the weekly episode where we sink our teeth into one of soccer's meteor topics.

Today, we're turning our attention to current Bundesliga leaders by Elevacussen.

In his first senior managerial role, Chabby Alonzo has Deverk Self flying high, with only four points dropped from 13 league games.

We're looking at why they're so good right now, what they've been doing right, who are their key personnel, how long their success can last, and what any potential flaws may be.

My name's Ryan Bailey, joining me today to discuss this and much more. We have Columbus, Ohio's Joe Lowry. Hello, Joe. It's me. I'm in Columbus. I'm Columbus's Joe Lowry. That's who I am. That's me. Hello, Joseph. Graham Rutherland also joining us. Hello, Graham. Hello, Ryan. How are you? I'm very good indeed, Graham. I'm conflicted by this show, however.

This could be, Graham, the cruelest episode of Total Sucker Show we have ever done.

We are talking about Baylor Levicerson, Taylor Rockwell's favorite team.

He's a cult team of the moment, and he's not on this episode.

Are we bad people for doing this?

Yes. I think we already knew the answer to that one. I thought you were talking about the TSS Jenks,

the TSS curse, which is very much a real thing at this point, Bayer Leverkus and top of the Bundesliga

right now. How long will that last for? I'm not convinced it will last for much longer, which might explain why we're doing this episode now while it still has a news, while it still has a news hook. But yeah, let's hope the curse isn't real and Bayer Levecution can evade it. Yeah, Grimm, the key to continuing the TSS curse is just to do it about title winners or title challengers in the Bundesliga.

And then as long as we're not talking about Bayern Munich, we can feel pretty good that eventually we will curse whichever team that we talk about. Also, Ryan, I felt like you almost said earlier that Bayer-Levich-Ewsson are Taylor's favorite show, which I do think watching Bayer-Levig-Ewson games count as Taylor Rockwell's favorite show. Taylor likes lots of shows. he likes lots of movies. I think watching Shabby Alonzo's team might top that entire list. The Alonzo show has got a ring to it. Maybe Apple can pick up on that at some point. Sounds good to meet Joe. By the way, Joe, as I mentioned, you're in Columbus, Ohio. MLS Cup coming up this weekend. Looking forward to it. Absolutely. I'm stoked. I've never been to Columbus before. So this is my first time. David Goss recommended it fairly highly on our MLS show that we did earlier in the week. And I've only been here for about a day so far. It's really nice. I've enjoyed it a ton. Ohio has become, like the state of Ohio has become a meme in the United States for whatever reason. But Columbus is great. I haven't been out to the stadium yet, but I'm heading there after we're done recording this today. Plenty of coverage coming here in the TSS feed, David and I will record after the game at some point to dig into the nitty-gritty, and then I'm doing a bunch of stuff for back-heeled as well. So it's been fun. I'm relieved to hear, Joe, that you're there for a game because I'm led to believe that

Columbus has quite a large Germanic population.

I think there's a German village, a region of Columbus called the German village.

I kind of thought you'd just flow into Columbus purely for this episode to give it to some

authenticity.

A little flare. little, a little

flair. Yes, a little authenticity. That was the secondary reason behind MLS Cup. Also, can I,

can I confess something? I haven't posted this on social media yet. So I actually flew into

Cincinnati and then I drove up from Cincinnati to Columbus. I rented a car just because

the flights were cheaper and that was the better fiscal decision and I was driving back

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