The Hoddle of Coffee: Tottenham Hotspur news and links for Tuesday, March 19

Hey, everyone!

Shall we talk about hair?

Ramble of the Day

Gareth Bale needs no introduction, particularly to this audience. We know about his footballing abilities. We know that he might know limited Spanish despite having lived in Madrid for more than five years. We also know that he has terrible hair, and we like to make jokes about it.

Photo by Denis Doyle/Getty Images

We’ve heard the top knot of sorts is an attempt to hide a bald spot. We’ve even seen a picture of said bald spot, probably on social media after a tabloid wrote something with a headline that had too many words in all caps. Whether or not that’s true is a different story, but either way, the question must be asked: How did we get here?

Photo by Ian Walton/Getty Images

This was Bale before he left one wonderful city in London for another wonderful city in Madrid. Whether one liked this hairstyle or not is beside the point; it is clear this man cared very much for his hair. It was rumored that he got his hair cut every five days to maintain it, but even before that, he looked like he got haircuts at a normal rate. This is essentially true for every hairstyle he had before he signed for Real Madrid, minus the July 2007 entry on this list of hairstyles Bleacher Report compiled five years ago.

For whatever reason, Bale started slacking on his hair game in Madrid. Perhaps the reason is that there are no hairdressers in Madrid, something I can’t confirm or deny from my own experience because I wasn’t looking hard enough when I was in Madrid seven months ago. That said, Bale is absolutely rich enough to fly in a barber from wherever he wants to cut his hair occasionally, and might even have enough time on his hands to watch YouTube tutorials and teach himself how to cut his own hair.

It’s possible he didn’t want to maintain his hair to make a good impression on his teammates, but Emmanuel Adebayor admitted to getting a haircut to fit in during his 2011 loan spell. Then again, there could be a difference between José Mourinho’s and Carlo Ancelloti’s Real Madrid teams, but Bale signed after Sergio Ramos chopped off his locks and decided to be his version of stylish. Most, if not all, of the top players at Real Madrid care about their looks in one way or another, and either Bale read the room wrong or was not motivated by this.

It’s possible he bought into the stereotypical hipster look and for whatever reason decided that look suited him...or it could be about that bald spot. You know you want to believe it. It’s okay. Even then, though...he could just get hair plugs if he’s so concerned with it. Again, he’s definitely rich enough to do it, and the process has probably been perfected to such a degree that it probably isn’t even that expensive. Plus, once they’re settled, you can do whatever you want with your hair, like style it the Edinson Cavani way.

Photo by Alex Livesey/Getty Images

It’s hardly the most important of issues in football, but Bale’s hair situation regardless is something we think about and wonder about. I hope we one day get the answer we’re all looking for.

tl;dr: What happened to Gareth Bale’s hair?

Links of the Day

David Ospina has been released from the hospital after collapsing during Napoli’s match against Udinese over the weekend.

Chelsea has sent a complaint to UEFA saying Callum Hudson-Odoi was the victim of racist chants during the team’s Europa League match at Dynamo Kyiv.

The derby match between Panathinaikos and Olympiakos was abandoned after 70 minutes on Sunday after fan violence.

Today’s longer read: Tom Marshall has an update on Salvador Cabañas, the Parguayan footballer who was on the radar of Manchester United before he suffered a gunshot to the head in 2010, for ESPN