Hello, everyone.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Total Soccer show.

My name is Joe Lowry, and today we are diving into all things Major League Soccer with a very special episode, an MLS transfer window special.

The window slammed shut, quietly. Windows always have to slam shut, but it did sort of slam shut quietly. I don't make the rules last week in major league soccer. And so to help me break down the biggest moves, the most interesting moves, the teams that did the best work, the teams that did the worst or the most confusing work. And so much more is the one the only, the guardians, Jeff Rooder, Jeff. How are you, man? You're in a different spot. Tell me more. I am. I am back in Atlanta. I went down to Tampa for exactly one day yesterday and came back. So, yeah, jet warrior, I guess. I don't know. It's like practice kind of for the World Cup, right? Like I'll be L.A., Vancouver, Seattle, Vancouver, L.A. at one point of that tournament.

So, like, whatever. Put my body through whatever it needs. These are the pain caves that Emma Hayes preached about, I'm sure. Yes. This is exactly what she had in mind and not anything different. I mean, it's good, Jeff. They're getting your reps in, you know, just to remember how to fly. like, you know, if you're in the middle seat, what's the etiquette on the armrests, all that sort of stuff if you're in the eye.

I mean, there's lots of these things to consider, and I'm know, if you're in the middle seat, what's the etiquette on the armrests, all that sort of stuff, if you're in the eye.

I mean, there's lots of these things to consider, and I'm glad that you're starting to practice now because that's really the only thing to do ahead of the World Cup.

You just can't assume that like the World Cup starts and you flip the switch and suddenly you're you're made for the moment, right?

I think sometimes you actually need to give evidence to your fans that, you know, things are going in the right direction and you're learning the right lessons.

And I, you know, like my, I think that all of my fans have pretty, none of my fans have told me that I use the middle seat armrest incorrectly. And so for that, I feel World Cup ready. It's a difficult one. It really is. The middle seat etiquette there, I think is tricky. But you know what else is tricky? Parsing through a bunch of MLS transfer window news, the window closed on Thursday last week. We broke down a bunch of the stuff over at Backhield, and now we're going to break down a bunch of this stuff here. Jepard's been writing a bunch of stuff as well, and we're going to talk about some of that stuff on this very show. in this very segment. If you want to support more of the Total Soccer Show, go to patreon.com slash Total Soccer Show.

We're doing a live show in L.A.

on the first day of the World Cup. We're very, very excited about it. If you're not a Patreon subscriber, tickets will open for you to be able to purchase on Monday. If you are a Patreon subscriber, you can get in the trenches right now and go make that happen. We are stoked about all of that. I'm also stoked to talk about this stuff. So, Jeff, let's do it. I've waited as long as I possibly can to talk about a bunch of the moves that happened on deadline day, effectively. Moves that were announced today after deadline day, the first one that we're going to dive into before we get to some superlatives in the second and third segments. It's a move by the Colorado Rapids to acquire cult legend. I don't know

if it's too early to call George Mnungu. That, but to acquire Georgia Mnungu from the Seattle Sounders. This was in exchange for $2 million in general allocation money. So it's a big, big haul for the Sounders here, bigger than the fee that they were going to get, it sounds like, from the European insuders that they had for Georgia Manungu. Jeff, Manungu is maybe a player that some folks outside of

Seattle don't know a whole lot about, I suppose, and this is a big fee for someone that has not become a regular starter in Major League Soccer, and yet the Rapids shelved it out anyway. What do you make of this move? It feels like one of the, it's a pretty classic Colorado Rapids move to me.

And the sense that it's looking at someone who maybe isn't getting utilized as often as most players expect to be.

And therefore, you assume that maybe there's more upside than what's being shown.

With Manungu, he's always worked really well so far for Brian Schmetzer coming off the bench and being a very dynamic kind of change of pace guy.

He was arguably their best on ball, just purely one-on-one take-on guy throughout the entirety of his tenure.

And I would imagine then from the Seattle side, the assumption was that, you know, just based on what Sounder at heart and others in the market we're reporting throughout the winter, that they were going to declutter the forward third a bit and probably either accept a trade offer for Danny Masovsky or Paul Rothrock left in free agency if he had, right? And that would have freed up more minutes for Georgie Manuka. Well, Masovsky is still there. Paul Rothrock signed a new contract and now has worked

into more of a starting role, really. And so then when you look at Georgi Manuka, he just didn't

really have that pathway to starts anymore. And so you can understand where a player then is saying, hey, I need to get going. He just kind of broke into the Burkina Faso national team over the last few months, went to Afghans. So like there's there's a desire to kind of grow in his stature.

He's 23 years old, obviously. And, and I would imagine then being able to go to a place like Colorado, um, who do need to just upgrade talent generally after another sort of cycling through their roster over the last two windows or so, um, you know, it's a good opportunity for him. It's a conference he's familiar in, so at least the opponents are going to be very

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