Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of The Total Soccer Show.

I am your host Taylor Rockwell.

Darrell Grove is in Boston. He is not with me today. So instead, I'm going to be talking to Meg Linnehan of the Athletic.

Meg has had a whirlwind few days, but has taken the time to chat with us, which we very much appreciate.

She was in Carrie slash Raleigh, North Carolina, for the NWSL Championship on Sunday. Then she was back in New York for the introductory press conference of Vlako Andonovsky, the new U.S. Women's National Team head coach. She attended both. She wrote about both. She's here to talk about both, as well as provide some updates on the U.S. players lawsuit and the response to that suit. There have been some updates. There have been some court filings. She helped me make sense of those and many, many other topics. So I will just turn it over to me asking questions to Meg. With me, once again, as she has been to help me make sense of the NWSL, to make sense of the playoffs and to make sense of the final, is Meg Linnehan of the athletic Meg. Thank you very much for taking

time from your very busy schedule to talk with me today. I am here. I have my coffee. I'm ready to go.

That's good. That is very important. I would not deprive you of coffee prior to recording because

that would be problematic, especially because as I said, you've been pretty busy. You were in North

Carolina for the final that I'm assuming you were immediately up to New York for the announcement of

Black-O-Andanofsky. It's very true. So I filed my Heather O'Reilly story, I think, at about

1145 on Sunday night, and then I had a 4.30 a.m. alarm in order to drop off my rental car, get to the airport.

So by the time I actually got to the press conference in New York City, I had already had some coffee,

but then they had free coffee for everyone. And I drank so much that after the presentation,

when I went up to go say hello to Kate Markraft, who I have not seen

in a while, my hand was actually shaking.

She was very polite and just like not mentioning it to me.

I had that experience once at a cautious convention, but it was, I was so hung over and had

compensated with coffee that I was shaking.

But that's a, that's a different story for a different day.

Instead, I want to hear more about the press conference.

You were there, obviously.

What was the vibe in that room?

...