The Hoddle of Coffee: Tottenham Hotspur news and links for Monday, October 1

Hi, all!

Let’s talk about nice things — or rather, nice people.

Ramble of the Day

Many moons ago, I casually said something along the lines of Son Heung-min being a universally adored footballer. Of course, I stand by my opinion. I still cannot think of a single reason to dislike Son, and I doubt anyone else can think of one. (I suppose I will invite people to share them if they have them, but I really do doubt it.) More importantly, there are so many reasons to like Son that I couldn’t possibly list them all (but you all can feel free to!).

That does raise the question, though: How many other universally adored footballers are there? While coming up with this ramble, I established certain criteria, though I am now willing to rework this a little. I was first going to go with those that are extremely well-known, but I will open this up to players who are well-known in smaller circles. The hard rule, though, must be that these players are only moderately disliked when they play against your team, but you still respect them way too much to actually hate.

The player that probably fits this mold best is Chelsea’s N’Golo Kanté. In addition to being a ridiculously talented player that would make any team in the world better, he’s probably just one of the greatest humans. You’ll likely recall the time Kanté met some fans at a mosque and ate dinner and played FIFA with them, and the time he was too nice to ask to hold the World Cup right after France won it. How could anyone hate, or even dislike, N’Golo Kanté?

Peter Crouch likely has a place on this list, too. He’s accomplished quite a bit in his time, but he is probably more appreciated nowadays for his humor. He’s probably someone you’d pick based more on his personality than his footballing ability, which is not to suggest he’s a bad footballer. However, he does have quite a few jokes in him, and is a pretty fun follow on Twitter.

I’ve come up with enough players to lay some groundwork and call it closing time on this ramble. I now turn it over to you nice people, should you want to add to the list.

tl;dr: There are indeed a few footballers who are hard to hate.

Links of the Day

Fans across the Bundesliga stayed silent over the weekend, protesting the scheduling of midweek league matches.

Gareth Bale will miss Real Madrid’s clash with CSKA Moscow in the Champions League this week with a muscle injury.

Today’s longer read: German outlet Der Spiegel’s detailed report about an American woman’s claim that Cristiano Ronaldo sexually assaulted her in 2009