The Hoddle of Coffee: Tottenham Hotspur news and links for Monday, April 22

Hey, Hoddlers!

I know I just did a picture-based Hoddle on Friday, but I think I might have to do something similar today.

Ramble of the Day

Son Heung-min is a treasure to the football world, and I’m providing you a reminder of something not a single one of you needs a reminder of. In all seriousness, there seems to be little Son can’t do. He’s quite good at football. He can do a lot of other random things, too, per that Shoot For Love video. He can dance and make you want to buy ice cream, and the ice cream is so good that one person even made an ASMR video about it. He’s built this extremely lovable image, making him seem wonderfully extraordinary and somewhat relatable at the same time. This next development isn’t the first of its kind, but the man has now added glamorous model to that image — he’s going to be GQ Korea’s cover star in May, and the images are amazing.

This is not the first time Son’s been in GQ Korea, or even the first time he’s showed off the ability to be a model. There are two reasons why I share, though:

1. Most of you are going to skip ahead to the comments to chat about Saturday’s game and/or Game of Thrones, so might as well present today’s ramble in a package easily consumed quickly.
2. I’d really like to stress the point that Son is becoming — or has already become, at this point — a global superstar in the best sense, and it’s worth talking about.

I’m always so fascinated by a footballer’s transition from famous athlete to an elevated level of covetable celebrity, which Son has achieved. He’s obviously aided in part by arguably being the greatest footballer, and possibly athlete, to come out of South Korea, but not all great athletes hit such a mark. Novak Djokovic is probably Serbia’s greatest athlete and is getting closer to being one of the greatest tennis players of all time; he hasn’t hit that status yet, though whether or not he does so in the future is a different story.

One might be able to argue that for some athletes, and people, it comes down to possessing that certain je ne sais quoi. There’s something a little bit magical about their overall attitude that makes them magnetic.

This is probably worth a deeper dive and a longer conversation, but like I said, you’re probably all ready to chat about other things, so I’ll leave you to it.

tl;dr: Son Heung-min continues to be awesome.

Links of the Day

Manchester City’s Kevin de Bruyne is set to miss the Manchester derby after pulling his hamstring over the weekend.

Manchester City players will pay for supporters’ transportation to next month’s FA Cup final against Watford.

Rafael van der Vaart is set to make his his competitive darts debut next month after retiring from football.

Today’s longer read: Cody Delistraty on an exhibit at Paris’s Arab World Institute’s unfiltered examination of the connection between football, Africa and the Middle East, and France for The New York Times