Hello,

Hello, everybody, and welcome to The Total Soccer Show.

My name is Taylor Rockwell.

I said it this time.

I didn't say it the first time, which is why we're redoing the introduction.

It is a Tuesday, which means it's time to do some MLS updating.

Here with me to do so, a man who has, to my knowledge, never been called a little boy by Phil Neville. It's Joe Lowry. Hello, Joe. I'm trying to think all my interactions with Phil Neville. No, he always calls me Big Boy, for some reason, which I thought was a big boy. But, yeah, some of the accent, maybe lets him get away with it. I actually don't know the quote that you're referencing, Taylor, or the situation that you're referencing, or maybe this just came from the depths of your mind, and either way I'm into it. Oh, it's referencing something pretty directly. We will probably talk about it when we talk about Portland's Lost of Vancouver. All right. Before we do that, we should introduce our fellow co-host, USL's greatest fan or nuisance, depending on your perspective. It's Jeff Ruter. Hello, Jeff. Or at least the media member who's paid attention to it the longest, maybe we'll say it this way. It's been a decade since I've started covering the lower leaks of US off. More than a decade. Like that is, that snuck up quick. Yes. It tends to do that, doesn't it? It's a little frightening. It really. Time does that. Time has a way. Yeah. And what is the subject of your latest coverage?

Yeah. So since we last spoke on Tuesday, I've had two pieces now come up on The Guardian about the U.S.

Outwar. The first one. Which one would you like to hear about?

No, go ahead. Do about. Today's piece is looking at the broader structure of it.

And so this is some context.

This is reporting that's been in the works for multiple weeks now.

Looking heavily at reporting done by people like John Morrissey and Colton Koreski at backheeled.

Shout out Joe Lowry as well, because you keep the plate spinning over there.

And then also reporting from elsewhere, public documents, all of these sorts of things,

to just look at the structure into which the USL is trying to introduce promotion

and relegation and whether or not it's stable enough to handle the jeopardy operationally

that its clubs will incur in such a format.

And then last week, looking at the strike, you know, as listeners might know,

the USL players in the championship are currently looking for a new CBA, collective bargaining

agreement. And the season started with every game, unless I'm missing any exceptions,

starting with the first minute, every player all 22 on the

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