The Hoddle of Coffee: Tottenham Hotspur News and Links for Friday, May 25

Hey, folks!

Another goodie from the land of Twitter to send you to the weekend.

Ramble of the Day

Last night, the Twitter account of the Fox Sports show, The Herd with Colin Cowherd, tweeted an image of host Colin Cowherd’s Top Ten Famous Athletes. Here is that list.

I’ll admit, I laughed the first time I saw this. Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, I must ask: In what world is Tom Brady more famous than Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi? In fact, there are a few on this list that could be ranked higher than Brady, and that’s not even to discuss who did not make the list. Neymar is not on it, and neither are the several cricket players that are incredibly well known worldwide. The most glaring error of all is probably that Aaron Rodgers is on this list. Seriously? Aaron Rodgers?

Perhaps by “world,” he means “the United States of America,” but I would argue that Messi and Ronaldo might be more popular than Brady in America. It is also possible that basketball stars LeBron James and Steph Curry are more popular, and Rodgers still would not crack this list.

Naturally, people had questions, and they asked Cowherd on Twitter for the answers. He did not really provide them. Here is Bob Williams providing Cowherd with athletes based on Twitter followers, a dramatically different list.

Cowherd, naturally, did not care for it. That being said, Cowherd not wanting to judge on Twitter followers is not the worst reasoning, even if number of Twitter followers is helpful when assessing popularity.

Next, Williams asked him about Rodgers’ inexplicable inclusion. Cowherd had a response for that, too.

“Dates Hollywood celebrities?” Colin, he dated Olivia Munn. No disrespect to Munn, who is a talented actress in her own right, but is not someone “the world follows closely,” I’m afraid. After Googling, I have found that Rodgers may have dated lesser known Hollywood actresses who do not fit the criteria.

Finally, Cowherd is confronted on his ranking of footballers. Cowherd makes a seemingly good point, and then leaves even more questions on the table.

Clearly, Cowherd is aware of cricket as a sport, and its popularity worldwide, which is a positive development. He leaves it at the all-important phrase “that wasn’t my criteria though.” Worry not, he had an answer.

...Messi has a lot of other very coveted titles, like La Liga trophies, and the very highly regarded Champions League! In fact, he has a few of those! I’m not so sure Messi fits the non-winners group. More importantly, though, “WINNING” does not equal “most famous,” though most famous people are winners. If winning was the criteria, then, would Serena Williams, winner of 23 Grand Slam titles — the most in the Open era — be at the top of this list?

There are still too many unanswered questions.

tl;dr: Look at a silly list.

Links of the Day

Andrés Iniesta has made his move to Japanese side Vissel Kobe official.

England players Fabian Delph and Phil Jones will be allowed to leave Russia during the World Cup for the births of their children.

Today’s first longer read: The New York Times’ Rory Smith shares why Liverpool have adopted a 1985 Italian disco number as their Champions League anthem this season

Today’s second longer read, in case you don’t want to read about Liverpool: Will Unwin interviews former Tottenham midfielder John Bostock on surviving a car crash and the perspective that has come with it for The Guardian