The Hoddle of Coffee: Tottenham Hotspur news and links for Thursday, June 27

Hello, Hoddlers!

A break from the World Cup yesterday means I get to ramble a bit about my recent trip to Paris. Now, for the ramble a few of you have been waiting for... (Aside: Wouldn’t it be extremely funny if news of a signing took attention away from the naturally attention grabbing Discofoot?)

Ramble of the Day

It was a sunny Sunday afternoon, and I had just finished a crêpe at a place across the street from the Centre Pompidou, where I had spent the early hours of the afternoon enjoying modern art. It was approaching 3p, and I had agreed to get to Parc des Princes on the earlier side ahead of the U.S.’ group stage match against Chile, so it was time to get going. I walked down the street, heard some music, turned my head to the right, and saw a crowd.

While I was exploring the Centre Pompidou earlier, I saw a sign for something called Discofoot. I had no idea what it meant, or where to see it. All I saw was a small football pitch, with no one on it or near it. When I turned my head, I knew what the crowd was watching. “I have to see this,” I said aloud, and my older sister started walking in that direction. I stuck myself in the crack behind the heads of two women, and this is what I saw:

Discofoot is the result of a partnership between the Centre Pompidou and Ballet de Lorraine, and actually made its debut a year earlier at the venue. Centre Pompidou describes the phenomenon as such (the following is my translation from French):

Discofoot, created by Petter Jacobsson and Thomas Caley, is a game of dance that is also nutty but sexy, that has fun knocking the rules of football through freestyle with the mixes of a DJ in the background.

What doesn’t make this description or the video is that after the music ends, the players are judged by a panel, and any low scores were booed by the crowd. I probably stayed no longer than a minute, but it was one of the most spectacular things I’ve seen in my life. I wish I had a chance to see more.

I will leave it there and let you amuse yourselves watching it, in case you hadn’t already. The participants are truly spectacular, but as always, the referee has room for improvement.

tl;dr: Introducing...Discofoot!

Links of the Day

Egypt has dropped Amr Warda from its Africa Cup of Nations squad after the player was accused of sexually harassing multiple women online.

FIFA has opened up disciplinary proceedings against Cameroon following the team’s elimination at the World Cup by England.

The Glastonbury Festival will show England’s World Cup quarterfinal against Norway today.

Transfer updates: Brighton has signed Leandro Trossard from Genk; Valencia has signed Jasper Cillessen from Barcelona

Today’s longer read: Andrew Keh on Germany legend Birgit Prinz’s return to the national team as a team psychologist at the World Cup for The New York Times