Hello, Sunshine. I'm Alexi Lollis and welcome to the State of the Union podcast.

When we look at the beautiful game on and off the field through the lens of red, white, and blue-colored glasses,

we will be talking about the huge legal decision regarding the US women's national team that came down this week.

We'll be talking about, whoa, Gareth Bale, and where is future melee.

We're going to be talking about some sports specialization at a young age. Is that good? Is that bad? The Newcastle

takeover, which has dominated some of the headlines around the world, given how big Newcastle

is and what could possibly happen. We're going to round up all the leagues out there at least for where they are at this moment. We know it's constantly changing, but for right now we're going to look at all the leagues and what they're doing and so much more. But first joining me as always my friend, my colleague, my guiding leg, David Mossy,

a soccer savant and a fox soccer researcher and writer extraordinary.

How are you, Mossysey on this Sunday morning?

I am well.

I know you're gonna have a pretty big name drop

coming in a minute, so I'll get mine out of the way first.

We're taping this on a Sunday morning.

Last night I took part in a video call with some of our colleagues.

Keith Kostigan was on it briefly.

Jovon Karofsky was an avid listener of this podcast.

Doesn't agree with anything we say, but nevertheless enjoys listening every week.

Ian Joy who had his two beautiful young kids with him.

It was nice to see them.

And then the great Warren Barton and I chatted about the Newcastle takeover, which as you mentioned

is one of the topics on

today's podcast. So it was fun to see them first time in several weeks, so good times.

...