The Hoddle of Coffee: Tottenham Hotspur News and Links for Friday, June 8

Hey, people!

Let’s talk about fake birds.

Ramble of the Day

As of today, we are less than a year away from the Women’s World Cup, so I will take this opportunity to ramble about the tournament’s mascot. Her name is Ettie, and she’s a pretty cute bird who takes pictures in scenic locations.

She’s not just your ordinary mascot. She comes with a cool back story, too.

You can tell that Footix is a good parent; he clearly learned from the mistakes of his parents by giving his kid an actual name, or close enough. (I think Ettie’s a pretty good name for a bird.) Also, she has a better sense of fashion than her father, who’s got on a suit that covers his entire body and has studs on the bottom of his feet. I find this to be a strange outfit choice.

Anyway, both of these mascots are pretty cute, but more importantly, they’re not creepy. Most mascots in the sports world tend to be. Take Chirpy, for example. He is pretty creepy. (Old Chirpy was way better.)

Photo by Matthew Lewis/Getty Images

To top that, though, the Colorado Rapids used to have RapidMan attend their matches. He was the team’s regular mascot from its first match in 1996 until his retirement in 2007, when the team gave him a testimonial. Feel free to read more about RapidMan from the Rapids’ site, but I must warn you that there are more pictures of RapidMan.

I’ve tortured you enough, so I will talk about a mascot that’s less terrifying instead. I must give a shoutout to Bayern Munich’s Berni the Bear, who I once had the pleasure of meeting four years ago. He’s nice to hang out with and can easily get through stadium seats to have impromptu parties and take selfies with anyone that wants them.

Photo by Lintao Zhang/Getty Images

There are probably more creepy looking mascots, but naturally, I’m not exactly in the mood to go looking for them.

tl;dr: A random list of good and bad football mascots.

Links of the Day

The Ghanian government has dissolved its FA after the release of a documentary revealed several officials in the sport accepted bribes.

Premier League executive chairman Richard Scudamore will leave his position at the end of 2018.

Mini transfer roundup: Sunderland’s massive squad overhaul has begun as Fabio Borini and Didier Ndong move to Torino and AC Milan, respectively; Borussia Dortmund have signed Danish midfielder Thomas Delaney from Werder Bremen; Juventus have permanently signed Douglas Costa from Bayern Munich

Today’s longer read: Joseph Hincks interviews Tottenham’s Son Heung-Min for Time magazine’s cover story ahead of the World Cup