A very special guest on the show this week: Atlanta United FC's head coach Ronny Deila. The man who guided New York City FC to its first MLS Cup in 2021 joined us before making his first trip back to Yankee Stadium as an opponent.

We covered a lot of ground, like how Ronny feels about coming back to face NYCFC for the first time since leaving the club in 2022, what went into his departure from New York City back in 2022, and what happy memories stick out the most from his time with NYCFC, including and in addition to the biggest one, when his team won that 2021 championship.

After our conversation with Ronny wraps up, hosts John Baney and Mark Radigan and producer Andrew Leigh shift things in the direction of previewing the game Deila's team will play against Pascal Jansen's NYCFC.

Both managers will have to make tough lineup choices given the game falls right during a busy period of international games, with many Atlanta and New York City players called up and active with their national teams and likely unavailable for the rare Thursday night game. We run through all the key absentees and possible absentees on both sides of the game and attempt to guess how New York City might line up while missing key starters like Matt Freese and Alonso Martínez, to name just two.

Speaking of Matt Freese, we wrap up this episode by discussing Freese's debut with the United States men's national team in the friendly against Türkiye, and wonder if he'll see more time during the Gold Cup, especially given how bad the USMNT looked with Matt Turner in goal in the heavy loss to Switzerland.

Listen to our full Ronny Deila Episode and then find more of our coverage by following Hudson River Blue on Bluesky, Instagram, and Threads, and by reading all our work at HudsonRiverBlue.com.