Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Total Soccer show. My name is Joe Lowry and with me today to talk about the USM&T's emphatic 5-1 win over Panama in World Cup qualifying.

Is Florida man himself? It's Taylor Rockwell. Taylor, is it true that a day after a day or so of being in Florida that you become Florida man i've heard that's true

i want to confirm from you right now is it true or not i do feel the strange urge to take my shirt off

and grow mullet while we record so yeah yeah there's something to that uh my microphone has

decided to go florida man in that it's not working i don't know is that florida man i'm that's a

shoehorned in way of explaining that uh my mic the connection is not so great. So we're using headphone mics for me today. That's why I think we're going to do a shorter show. Is that right, Joe? That's right. So we're doing about a 20-ish minute show today. Tomorrow we'll have the full recap out. Heck, it might even be tomorrow by the time you listen, by the time you listen to this.

But it will be early in the morning by the time this hits your feed. We'll have a much more in-depth review tomorrow to dive into all of the nitty-gritty aspects of this game, which was a really impressive game from the United States wins national team. More on that in just a minute. Taylor, with your mic situation, I think you meant to say that an alligator chewed on your microphone.

There we go.

That's how you really tie in the Florida. team. More on that in just a minute. Taylor, with your, with your mic situation, I think you meant to say that an alligator chewed on your microphone.

There we go. There we go. That's how you really tie in the Florida here.

Man, people that are kind of catches some strays, but you know, you got to do what you got to do. They seem to throw the strays at themselves.

I'm not going to say they shoot themselves, but they like, there's definitely,

I'm just trying to think of a good example.

Like the masks down here that are very optional. Every single person has made a comment, like, I know, like you expect no one in Florida wear masks. Like, it does seem like there's an idea like, we know, we know the jokes about us. Like they try to preempt them a little bit. Yeah, I mean, that's, I suppose it's kind of all you can do at a certain point, Taylor. So I want to, I want to start with your bird's eye thoughts on this game, especially because you were there at Exploria Stadium covering this 5-1 win in person. This was a huge win for the U.S. men's national team, a win that I think was probably the best performance and the most important win, certainly, of the Berhalter era.

What did you think of this game, Taylor?

What did you see being there in person? What was the atmosphere like? Just give me your overall thoughts on this game. We talked about this a little bit in the BR show, but for folks who missed it, I thought that was probably the most impressive, comprehensively good half of soccer the U.S. has played under Greg Burrhalter that I can remember. Joe, you tend to have a better memory than I, and I might go back

to my notes and just look at some of the bigger results. But for me, how resoundingly dominant they

were after make a little shaky opening five or ten minutes. From that point on until halftime,

the U.S. was just all over

Panama. And that was defensively. That was on attack. That was in transition. They hustled. They worked so hard. And then there's even moments away from the goals where the ball would be cleared and a Panamanian would bring it down. And I remember specifically one moment, like Jesus Ferreira sprints like 30 yards to hassle him and then Pulisic swarms him. And eventually the ball is coughed up, U.S. gets possession back. And it was just so high energy, so much good work from the United States on the night that I'm almost sort of dumbfounded at the end of it by how good they were, how strong that was. And if you needed a statement win from the U.S., I would say that was a pretty statementy win. And there's a couple things there for me, Taylor, based off what you said that really stand out. The first thing is Barthor's halftime interview that he did with the FS1 crew, he mentioned specifically how good the energy was in that first half. And he's absolutely right. The players were buzzing around the field. They were aggressive, high pressing from the start of this game. They were responding to Panama's aggression and they were hitting in transition. There were some nice moments in possession as well. Maybe we'll talk about more about more of that in just a minute. But I thought Berlter was spot on to highlight the energy just as you are, Taylor, and your response there.

The other thing is, I got to eat some crow, Taylor Rockwell, because I spent a good chunk of the last week and a half or whatever it's been at this point talking about how this is the,

this game was the most important one in the window.

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