Back at the end of June, Alexi Lalas made an appearance on Comedy Central’s “Colbert Nation” to say it was time to care about soccer:

Lalas is back on ESPN’s telecast of Sunday’s MLS Cup (5:30 p.m.) telling L.A. fans it’s time to care about the Galaxy again.

The former star player and team GM fired from his post late last season has mixed feelings about seeing this team make it to the title game. Imagine if he’d been allowed to stick around one more year, with Bruce Arena as the coach, and be in Seattle this weekend as the one who orchestrated this title-contender instead of being accused of being the one responsible for the mess it was in less than a year ago.

We caught up with Alexi doing voice-over work back in Bristol, Conn., on the U.S.-Denmark game and drained him for some info on how he feels about this situation and who he’s pulling for (surprise) in Sunday’s game.

He says he misses “the day-to-day business” of soccer, but the TV work “is a wonderful thing to do.” He’ll explain.