The Hoddle of Coffee: Tottenham Hotspur news and links for Tuesday, September 11

Hello, everyone.

A small note before I continue:

We are aware of the story that broke yesterday about Lucas Moura’s political beliefs. While we have published pieces related to the intersection of Tottenham Hotspur and political issues in the past, we feel that this particular issue does not fall into that intersection, and is a bit different from the issues we have chosen to write about. The player’s beliefs are something that he must confront and our world must confront, but not something that Tottenham in particular must, since hiring and firing based on these beliefs is discriminatory in certain countries.

We do, though, believe that the story is worth being covered by the outlets that have chosen to, and encourage anyone who would like to read about it to do so. That said, we strongly discourage discussions about the topic in the comments sections at this time, and repercussions may follow if you do not abide by these rules.

Ramble of the Day

I had come up with the idea of this ramble, thinking that the occasion might be to say goodbye to Toby Alderweireld. Of course, he never left, and neither did anyone else over the summer. (Sorry for reminding you.) Just because Alderweireld is still around, though, doesn’t mean I can’t dissect his social media game.

Alderweireld maintains an impressive consistency between his Twitter and Instagram accounts, and by that I mean that he posts the same things on both accounts. Like the usual footballer, there are some pictures of him with his teammates and his friends and family, but it would be disrespectful to call Alderweireld a normal footballer based on his social media.

You may recall that I once rambled about Alderweireld’s interesting photoshoots that are a spotlight for his tattoo sleeve.

There, though, was that one time where he was just...staring at a ball. (We get it, dude. You’re a footballer.)

In addition to unique photos, Alderweireld posts some original video content. Here’s one that served as a preview of sorts ahead of Tottenham’s match against Manchester United.

That is some seriously dramatic music, and I suppose superimposing a picture of yourself on top of another picture of yourself several times over should also be interpreted this way.

Then, of course, there was the video dubbed by my older sister as the “I want a transfer training video.”

Whether or not that was the intention when posting this video will likely never be known, but the remarkable parts of the video lie in its editing. The transitions from training exercise to training exercise are...fascinating. The filmmaker here clearly has a vision, but it does come off a bit more gimmicky than impressive, and that final shot of the three training exercises side-by-side(-by-side) really kills any attempt at being cool. No one can call unordinary, though.

He has even made attempts to tell jokes through memes, all probably a bit manufactured but still amusing.

I’d argue the picture of Romelu Lukaku and the picture of the goat should be swapped, but either way is fine.

Clearly, there’s a tone of sorts that Alderweireld and his social media team, which seemingly either changed or updated strategy a little bit less than a year ago, are going for. It’s attempting to be sleek, modern, cool, and a little bit hard all at the same time. It sometimes gets away with it, too, though obviously doesn’t seem like just Alderweireld is behind all the posts.

Of course, there’s nothing really wrong with that. Alderweireld is allowed to do that with his social media accounts, and his money, and people in the social media industry need to work, also. It makes the Belgian an entertaining follow, though; it might be curated, but it isn’t like anyone else has a social media presence like he does.

The best, though, is always in his most personal posts. I imagine you’ll all like this photoset of him and Jan Vertonghen as a reward for suffering through my unnecessary exploration of an athlete’s social media accounts.

tl;dr: Be your weird internet self, Toby Alderweireld.

Links of the Day

Republic of Ireland manager Martin O’Neill has stood up for assistant Roy Keane after audio leaked of Stephen Ward talking about a training bust-up between Keane, Harry Arter, and Jonathan Walters.

The Kosovan men’s national team has won its first ever competitive match, beating the Faroe Islands 2-0 in the UEFA Nations League.

Today’s longer read: Suzanne Wrack interviewed Chelsea Women manager Emma Hayes about following up a double-winning season, large squad turnover, life as a new mother, and the recent changes in the women’s game in England for The Guardian