Hello everybody and welcome to the Total Soccer Show.

I'm Taylor Rockwell, and today I am still joined by Daryl Grove. However, he's still consumed by his feelings about the rise of Skywalker. To do this introduction, that's not really true. He's in Boston, but I do think he's probably also still thinking about the rise of Skywalker. So it's up to me to let you know that today we're going to be talking to Stu Holden.

Stu has been on the program before and is obviously a lovely fellow.

He took a good chunk of his day to discuss the current state of the U.S. Ben's national team, the upcoming January camp, as well as what it's like to come into the national team as a youngster, what it's like to be a part owner of a club in Spain, and what it's like to miss time with injury. That's a very useful thing to think about as we talk about some players who've missed a lot of time this season, this year, and what we hope for for the coming year. As that may have indicated, this is a very wide-ranging conversation that I would speak for Daryl and say that we both really, really enjoyed. Hopefully you all will too, and with that in mind, joining us on the line, we've got Mr.

Stu Holden, who, when he isn't talking about soccer, is busy vacationing with the stars.

Stu, are you back from your vacation, or are we still cutting into your relaxation time?

I am back from vacation.

I actually just played pickup soccer this morning to work off some of the drinking I did for the last two weeks and played with a bunch of the LA Galaxy and LASC guys.

So I can tell you, you know, El Traffico does exist in the off season here in L.A. as well.

Did you hold your own? Have you still got it?

Yeah, I said I feel like a Premier League player for the first 15 minutes, and then I feel like a conference player for the last 45.

See, that's why your approach when we were in Orlando is the smart one. You wait for everyone to play indoor soccer for like half an hour, 45 minutes, then you show up, then you're the one with the fresh legs, and you torch everybody. I'm sure that's the only reason why you were able to shred a bunch of amateur soccer players.

That's the only reason. I feel like maybe you're redefining my role now as like the only Gunner, So Shows, So Shars, Super Sub. Like, I can come on for the last 20 minutes and just give you what I've got and hope my knees hold up. All right. We will use you in a super sub-capacity,

but we also wanted to have you on the show

because we wanted to sort of help us make sense

of the national team right now,

help us make sense of the first year under Greg Burrhalter.

We had this question, I believe, last week

when we were doing a listener question,

so I wanted to ask you,

what are some things that you liked

about the first year under Greg Burrhalter? What are some things you did not enjoy about the first year under Greg Burrhalter?

...