The Hoddle of Coffee: Tottenham Hotspur News and Links for Friday, June 15

Hey, everyone!

Looks like we’ve got a fun day of World Cup ahead. Of course, I’ll be rambling about it again.

Ramble of the Day

The World Cup is incredibly popular, so much so that almost everyone feels the need to share that they are aware of its existence. Most of these people do know a thing or two about the actual tournament, but even those who are unaware get into the spirit. One small group of these people are those writing for pop culture publications who have decided to rank players based on their looks.

Before I continue, I will note that I will not be judging the players on their looks in this ramble. However, there are a few things to enjoy about these lists, even for those who do not care to rank footballers in this way.

First, for those of you that care, I looked at three articles and the three most popular players were Kim Shin-Wook, Matthew Leckie, and André Silva. Additionally, Tottenham players Dele Alli, Mousa Dembélé, and Son Heung-Min were named dropped, as was former Spurs midfielder Nacer Chadli.

Now, for the most important part of these articles. The people who go to lengths to write these articles do their research beforehand, and what they’ve come up with is fairly amusing. I’ll only share a handful of excerpts, but know there was much more that I could’ve included.

Vogue’s Patricia Garcia had interesting fun facts in her article, sharing Instagram follower counts and transfer values for many of her selected players. She also mentioned that James Rodriguez has his own cryptocurrency, JR10, and I am very glad she shared this.

The Cut, meanwhile, asked many of their writers to pick a player and write about him. Staff writer Madeleine Aggeler picked Iran’s Ramin Rezaeian, though she did have a caveat, writing that “his Instagram has a couple of pictures of him posing with fancy cars, which I don’t love.” To be fair, it sounds like a pretty boring Instagram account.

Emily Sandberg, meanwhile, had this to say about her choice: “The best part about my man Danish Mathias [Jørgensen] is that someone has a tattoo of his face on their calf.” I like that she thinks something weird and out of his control is the best thing about him. (I am being genuine.)

W Magazine had Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan compile their list of one player from each country, except for England, as both Jack Butland and Ruben Loftus-Cheek got voted in. Notably, Fakhreddine Ben Youssef was Tunisia’s choice, and here was their fun-fact based sentence about him: “He owns a Roger Federer t-shirt, so maybe Fed will decide to swing by Russia and lend his own handsome support.” I am pretty sure Roger Federer does not visit all of the people that buy his clothes, and I am also certain that the guy is probably busy prepping for Wimbledon.

There were a few other facts that overlapped, namely the fact that Kim Shin-Wook’s teammates call him “Christian brother” because he reads the Bible a lot. Additionally, Morocco’s Mehdi Carcela had an Instagram post that was mentioned in two of these articles.

That is a pretty wild picture. Wonder if he commissioned someone to make it for him.

tl;dr: A summary of the greatest facts about the supposed hottest players at the World Cup.

Links of the Day

Italy and Spain have qualified for next year’s Women’s World Cup. The tournament will be the first for the Italians.

The FA is considering a joint bid with Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland for the 2030 World Cup hosting rights.

Today’s longer read: James Montague recaps the wild last year of Iranian football, from the ban on women in stadiums to World Cup preparations, for Bleacher Report