The Hoddle of Coffee: Tottenham Hotspur News and Links for Tuesday, July 31

Hello, all!

I appreciate the many MoviePass sentiments, and I hope to venture to the movie theater again soon.

Ramble of the Day

Every now and again, Twitter presents you with an important question. Not the always present question of how social media has impacted our society; I’m talking one of those questions that some Twitter user tweets that leaves you thinking carefully about your answer. Here is today’s entry:

This one took a bit of thinking on my part, partly because I got distracted watching something on Netflix and chatting in the Cartilage Free Captain writers’ room. I could have gone with yesterday’s ramble about how passionately I love bold and bad defending, but I feel that I need some originality here, as with all rambles. Scrolling through the replies, though, I figured it out.

Penalty shootouts are fine. In fact, they might actually be good.

Allow me to work through an argument against them. They are cruel and unfair, and the chance that the lesser team progresses is incredibly high. Yet, the incredibly popular replacement, some version the golden goal rule, is impractical. Remember the last 15 minutes of any match that has gone to extra time. Every single starter left looks incredibly tired, and the fatigue is visible in future games if players aren’t given a chance to take a break. While golden goal would sometimes end matches before the 120 minute mark, the option to go much longer would be detrimental to fitness.

Now, to argue in favor of the penalty shootout. 120 minutes is long enough for all involved to settle a score, whether there is an evidently better side on the pitch or not. Plus, I clearly enjoy a bit of suspense and drama on the pitch, and a penalty shootout brings that. There is no knowing what is to come, even if you guessed correctly that Jordan Henderson was going to miss his penalty against Colombia.

There is no way, ultimately, to avoid crushing defeat in sport. Someone will walk off the pitch in tears soon enough; penalty shootouts just get us all to that point in a more thrilling, if nail-biting, fashion.

Honorable mention: The phrase “we have x cup finals left” in reference to remaining match days in a season should die.

tl;dr: I like penalty shootouts. Feel free to disagree.

Links of the Day

VAR’s next destination is Brazil, as the technology will be tested in this week’s quarterfinals of the Copa do Brasil.

League Two side Forest Green Rovers is the first United Nations certified carbon neutral football club.

Transfer roundup: Fulham have signed Aleksandar Mitrovic from Newcastle;

Today’s longer read: the second part of Dan Kilpatrick’s interview with Tottenham chief executive Donna-Maria Cullen, who spoke about Daniel Levy and the club’s spending habits in the Evening Standard