The Hoddle of Coffee: Tottenham Hotspur News and Links for Wednesday, May 9

Hi, Hoddlers!

Vedran Ćorluka’s girlfriend performed in yesterday’s Eurovision semifinal, and she did not qualify for the final. Here’s the music video, and for those located in Europe, here is the geo-blocked performance. (Warning: the video has strobe lighting, and some of the others today will have similar strobe lighting.) It was awful.

Ramble of the Day

There are two basic components to a memorable Eurovision entry. The first, as discussed yesterday, is a catchy song with nonsensical lyrics. The second part is a performance that is notable, meme-worthy, and mostly hilarious.

Take, for example, “Verona,” Estonia’s 2017 entry that failed to progress to the final. Estonia in recent years has had a tradition of significant Eurovision entries, and “Verona,” performed by Koit Toome and Laura (yes, just Laura) is no exception. Before I go, I must warn that this is a video that is geo-blocked, meaning people outside of Europe will not be able to watch it, but I will try to make this an enjoyable experience for those that cannot watch it.

To start, we’ve got Laura doing some weird things with her arm.

Then, when her partner-in-crime Koit Toome enters the stage, Laura had to just creepily show up behind him. (Worry not, there is eventually one of Toome.)

The fun finally begins, though, once Toome decides he has to do this a few times over. (My younger sister loves this GIF.)

If you’ve been geo-blocked up to this point, congrats! I have found a video of the second half of the performance for your viewing pleasure.

Toome smiles at weird places and makes a little too much eye contact with the camera. Also, their voices are fighting each other, and I have reason to suspect that our performers don’t like each other.

Toome is now kind of idiot sandwich-ing Laura, and they’re both sporting these fake smiles. I’m not totally sure he’s actually touching her. He might just be getting very close to her head without actually touching it.

They close out the song with their backs facing each other, a round of applause, and eventually without a ticket to the final. It’s too bad, since Koit Toome over here seemed adamant on becoming a meme. Another time, perhaps.

Honorable mentions: Italy’s 2017 entry “Occidentali’s Karma,” which is a smartly written song that involves a gorilla showing in the performance and the not geo-blocked music video, and 2014 Iceland entry “No Prejudice,” with an equally good message provided by, I’m guessing, the Icelandic version of the Wiggles. Supplemental reading can be found via BuzzFeed, who came up with a list of 39 bonkers Eurovision performances.

tl;dr: Performing at Eurovision is a very unique task.

Links of the Day

New Zealand Football will pay their male and female footballers equally.

Several former Chelsea players have gone public with their stories about racial abuse from former youth team coaches.

Versace have created their own football shirt as part of its Spring/Summer 2018 collection.

David Squires has a new cartoon, this time focusing on the Premier League relegation race.

Today’s longer read: for The Guardian, Stuart James interviews Cardiff goalkeeper Neil Etheridge, who went from non-league football and will now attempt to be the first footballer from Southeast Asia to play in the Premier League