The Hoddle of Coffee: Tottenham Hotspur news and links for Tuesday, November 13

Hi, all!

Somehow, Thanksgiving is next week. I am again shocked at the passage of time.

Ramble of the Day

For several months now, Pepsi has aired an advertisement during football broadcasts of many types that feature a number of footballers. Lionel Messi, Marcelo, Dele Alli, Carli Lloyd, Toni Kroos, and Giovanni dos Santos are participants and they play with paint balloons. It’s a fun and entertaining commercial, but there’s just one problem: It doesn’t make sense.

Everyone puts on white/light gray hoodies in this intense game of foot-paint-ball. The idea is that if you get the (Pepsi) blue paint on you, it will be very easily spotted. There is nowhere to hide; the stakes are incredibly high. Naturally, Messi’s going to prep by opening up a can of Pepsi and drinking it, but this is just something they have to do as advertisers. Let’s focus on the storyline here.

Marcelo ducks to avoid getting hit by the foot-paint-ball that dos Santos kicks, and is safe for now. Alli, meanwhile, takes a shot and hits a wall, perhaps aiming for someone — maybe the woman he smiles at. I’m not sure if they’re trying to add a romantic subplot here, or one of friendship — it can’t just be the friendly smile you offer a stranger after you mess something up a little, because the shot lasts too long. Anyway, any relationship that’s building between Alli and the woman is cut short, because he’s out of the game after Kroos’s foot-paint-ball hits him in the back of the head. I don’t know if he has to leave the site immediately or can go hang out with that woman, but he’s gone.

We’re about halfway through, and it seems like we know the rules of the game. We also learn that there are people with this situation’s version of on-field seats, which reminds me of a splash zone at an aquarium. It seems fine, but a little bit dangerous because one woman has a bottle of Pepsi open, making it possible that paint heads her way and into her drink — but back to knowing the rules.

Some not-famous participant gets rid of Kroos and Marcelo in one shot, and runs away to go win the game, I suppose. Instead of reacting like normal people upon their elimination, Kroos and Marcelo...high-five each other. Is getting eliminated all of a sudden good now? Did they high-five because it’s like the MLS All-Star Game in a World Cup year when all of the players on the opposing team went to the World Cup, but are contractually obligated to play only a few minutes so everyone can profit? Is there something special about being eliminated together, or by that person? We will never get the answers to these questions.

We make it to the end, and it seems like Messi and Lloyd are the last people standing or something. I guess that Pepsi beforehand prepared Messi well for his task, but it seems like Lloyd was playing a smarter version of this game by collecting foot-paint-balls and sticking them in a pick-up truck. She seems to be guarding them, but has one prepared to knock out Messi, while he’s prepared to finally get rid of her. Their balls hit each other, but the last footballer we see is Messi, so maybe he won?

There are no answers. Only questions.

tl;dr: Today in “Commercials That Don’t Make Sense.”

Links of the Day

UEFA says it might reopen its 2014 Financial Fair Play investigation into Manchester City if the confederation finds new information that would change the results of the investigation.

Liverpool’s Daniel Sturridge has been charged by the FA with violating the federation’s betting rules.

Chelsea and the New England Revolution are planning a friendly to fight anti-semitism for next spring.

Arsenal’s Danny Welbeck underwent successful ankle surgery, though it is too early to tell when he might return to action.

Today’s longer read: James Horncastle interviews Kevin-Prince Boateng on racism in the sport and the lack of progress FIFA has made in wiping it out for ESPN