Why is Bezos buying into Liverpool? | Listener Questions

**Ryan Bailey** (0:20)
Welcome to the Total Soccer Show, and our latest parade into the Listener Questions mail back. On this episode, we're asking why Bezos wants a piece of Liverpool. We're asking which keepers would make the best outfield players. And we're seeing which staff managers bring with them when they make the old move. And so, so much more coming on this episode. My name's Ryan Bailey. Joining me today, oh, look, it's from Arizona, the Joe Lowry. Hi, Joe, how are you?

**Joseph Lowery** (0:45)
It's me. I like how you can tell the Arizona-ness just by the oof that I bring to the recordings.
I'm thrilled to be here, Ryan. Listener Questions is always some of my favorite. And today, we're getting to talk some of that's directly in my wheelhouse towards the end of the show, that I might go on for, I don't know, half-hour straight about. We'll see. Let's find out. Jeff Bezos? I like it.

**Graham Ruthven** (1:02)
Is that the thing that's right in your wheelhouse?

**Joseph Lowery** (1:05)
Yeah. Yes. That's the one. That's what I meant.

**Graham Ruthven** (1:07)
Oh, when Joe was off a couple weeks ago or last week, whenever that was, he was actually at Bezos' Lake Como. He got an invite to the wedding, actually.

**Joseph Lowery** (1:15)
It's just me and Trevor Chalaba who were in Como together, hanging out. I mean, it's the whole thing. That's it. There's no more details. Nice.

**Ryan Bailey** (1:22)
Did you get to go on the rocket?

**Joseph Lowery** (1:25)
Okay. I'll admit, we had rocket plans and we just didn't get there. We didn't get there.

**Graham Ruthven** (1:28)
That's how Joe commutes now, via rocket.

**Ryan Bailey** (1:31)
The rocket, it's got a station name, Casa Grande, Arizona, in the heart of the action. Graham Rusman, hello. How are you?

**Graham Ruthven** (1:39)
I'm good, Ryan Bailey. I have a question for you. How ready are you for the new season? Because obviously, with the American teams, they've just played all the way through the summer. But for us as Europeans with European teams, I think the AFC Wimbledon season may have already started. Did you play Newport County at the weekend?

**Ryan Bailey** (1:57)
We had a League Cup game, yeah.

**Graham Ruthven** (1:59)
How ready were you for that? Like me, would you rather have another couple of weeks before the real stuff starts?

**Ryan Bailey** (2:06)
Emotionally, not ready. Physically, not ready. Mentally, also not ready.

**Graham Ruthven** (2:10)
Okay, cool. All three?

**Ryan Bailey** (2:12)
Yeah.

**Graham Ruthven** (2:13)
Same.

**Ryan Bailey** (2:14)
But it's coming and I can't wait.

**Graham Ruthven** (2:16)
Community Shield this weekend. Oh, wow.

**Ryan Bailey** (2:20)
Yeah.

**Graham Ruthven** (2:22)
Arsenal Man City, I believe.

**Ryan Bailey** (2:24)
Yeah, that sounds right.

**Graham Ruthven** (2:25)
I'm not even 100% about that. That tells you how ready I am for the new season. Community Shield called the Community Shield because it used to be called the Charity Shield until a court told them they could no longer call it that because they didn't give enough money to charity. What an event.

**Ryan Bailey** (2:41)
That's incredible.

**Graham Ruthven** (2:43)
Now it's the Community Shield. What's community about it? I have no idea, but that's been the name of it for the last 15 years.

**Ryan Bailey** (2:49)
We should just call it the Super Cup.

**Graham Ruthven** (2:51)
The Super League? Is that taken?

**Ryan Bailey** (2:55)
Let's workshop that one. We got plenty of questions to get to on our Listener Questions episode here and also plenty on our bonus feed. You can get there at patreon.com/totalsoccershow.
Bonus episodes including a little bonus listener question we're going to handle. Hey Joe, have you heard Peter Greenwood's question? He wants to know who's going to win the World Cup first out of Canada or the United States of America. We're going to tackle that one on the bonus feed. Give away nothing, Joe. Give away nothing.

**Joseph Lowery** (3:22)
Powdered dry. Dry as a bone.

**Ryan Bailey** (3:24)
Yeah, that's coming on the bonus feed. Much more on there including access to our Discord server where all the cool kids are hanging out. patreon.com/totalsoccershow. One more bit of business before we get to the questions. Graham, you've been doing some typing on your laptop to the effect of a newsletter.

**Graham Ruthven** (3:41)
Yes, that's right. So some listeners might know about my newsletter, The Soccer Dispatch. If you don't, it is a newsletter that focuses on, I guess, soccer stories you might not find in the mainstream. So I send it every Monday and Thursday. Today's newsletter, for example, is about Malawi's incredible run to the final of the Women's Afkon, which has been one of the best stories of the entire year. It's their first ever Afkon, their first ever Afkon, and they've beaten the defending champions, they have beaten Algeria, and now they're into the final on Sunday. So that's this week's newsletter. Last week's was about FC Copenhagen's recovery after last season when they nearly got relegated. The week before that was about Vietnam and their growth as a soccer nation recently. So you get the idea here. I've counted up how many countries I've covered in the newsletter over the last three years. It's over 150 countries now that have written about soccer. And so if that sounds like your sort of thing, I am running a $5 season ticket offer to be a paid subscriber for a full year. I really need some more numbers to keep it viable. It takes a lot of time and effort to produce every newsletter, two per week. So if you're interested, please go to thesoccerdispatch.com/seasonticket and grab that $5 offer. It would mean an awful lot to me.