Hello, hello, and welcome to the Total Soccer Show. My name is Taylor Rockwell. I have a hurt shoulder and putting my hands above my head hurt. And I forgot about it. Joe Lowry, I hope you are not in as much pain as I am right now. It seems like a safe bet that I'm not. What happened to your shoulder, man? I was flanking indoor last night and got put into a wall, is how I will put it.

And I thought I landed like the right way to not be heard. But now here I am holding my shoulder as I do this introduction. But do you know why I'm not in as much pain as I would be, Joe? Potch. Potch. Potch. Do you hear that? That's weird. I do. coming from. I do. I'm so excited. I'm like, I can't even hide it, man. I am very excited about the

rumors confirmed. Watch. Do you hear that? That's weird. I do. I'm so excited. I'm like, I can't even hide it, man. I am very excited about the rumors, confirmed rumors, not yet fully confirmed story that Maricio Pocitino is going to take over the U.S. men's national team. It is not yet official. When it becomes official, we will certainly do an episode about it. I think we're targeting a big thing episode. But for now, Joe, it does seem like it is going to happen or maybe already has. It certainly seems like things are moving in the right direction. Reports started to come out last night. I woke up to Ornstein and Romano tweeting about this. I think the expectation is that this is going to get done. My understanding and what's

been reported a little bit as well, I think by Steve Goff and some others, is that it's not all the way

over the line. As you said, Taylor, I think there maybe still needs to be some sort of board approval.

I don't know all the ins and outs of what's happening behind the scenes here, but maybe I just say that

to open by, I say that to cover our bases just in case this all falls through. And there's another reason why we're going to spend a whole episode if and when this happens on Maricio Pochitino taking over the U.S. men's national team. But for now, this is probably going to be a bit more vibesy and a little bit shorter than that eventual deep dive is going to be. This is a, is this really happening? Could this be happening? What does this mean? How do we feel about it kind of Maricio-Pachitino chat? Because it is a huge name and it's a huge appointment. And it is, it is a bigger name than I expected the U.S. to conceivably be able to get. I felt like when we were looking at European candidates, it was Patrick

Vieira. Maybe it was moderato, that that was dismissed by moderato pretty quickly.

Rafa Benitas seemed to have entered the chat at some point, and I didn't hate that either,

but that felt like the kind of caliber we were looking at for non-domestic hires.

Pochitino felt like not dissimilar from the Yurgen Klop links.

And I think Klopp still would have been everyone's favorite candidate.

But failing him and him not being interested or not wanted to coach soccer anymore,

Mauricio Pachitino, I was telling my wife today, is like a manager that I was hoping would

manage Manchester United at some point. Like as a United fan, he felt like he could be a really exciting appointment. He's got a lot of good ideas. He seems to get a lot of belief from his players. So that he is now coaching the U.S. men's national team is a pretty seismic shift in my mind. Yeah. We were talking about this with the rest of the crew, Graham and Ryan, before we started recording some stuff today. And Graham tossed us out, and I think he's right.

It's great. This might just be the biggest national team managerial appointment ever. And to peel

back the context here a little bit on why that is, You mentioned it there, Taylor Pochitino is not

the biggest name manager in the entire world. He is one of them. He is immediately the most

famous person attached to U.S. soccer and other than Messi, maybe one of the most famous

to American soccer period. But the reason why this is partially such a big deal for the larger

international soccer landscape is coaches the best of the best

tend to want to coach every weekend. They tend to want to coach under the biggest spotlights.

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