The Hoddle of Coffee: Tottenham Hotspur news and links for Monday, September 16

Hi, everyone!

This is going to be the first week where I split the Hoddle’s lead image between the men’s and women’s teams. Since the men returned from the international break, they’ll be kicking things off.

Ramble of the Day

I’m doing a rapid free write of sorts: I’m giving myself the 15 minute halftime interval of Sky Blue FC-Chicago Red Stars to do it, and I’ll only stop if the match comes back, I’ve reached a certain number of words, or if I’ve been interrupted. Only time will tell!

I was thinking about doing a free write earlier today, or some other day — I can’t really remember. I was wondering if I’d abused my privileges too much in a sense, as I’d done a couple of free writes over the last few weeks. I’m probably overthinking it because I make the rules here and it doesn’t really matter. A little bit Pep Guardiola-like, but I don’t really need to compare myself to Guardiola. I’m just here, remembering all the times he’s overthought things in the Champions League. I relate, but also take a certain amount of enjoyment out of the incidents.

I’ve now encountered something that hasn’t really happened while I’ve done one of these rambles before - I just ran out of thoughts. I even went back and reread the passage on Guardiola, and I didn’t have a thing to add. It reminds me of the time I was asked if writing the Hoddle is stressful because I have to think of something random five days a week and muster a somewhat large quantity of words about it. I wouldn’t exactly say it is; I delay the process a lot when I don’t have anything in mind, and there are a few ways that ends. I usually end up with a decent amount of backup options because I’ve gotten good enough at thinking of ramble topics.

Most of things I ramble about are things that came up in conversation at some point. If my phone’s on me, I write it down where I write down all Hoddle related things. If not, I’ll leave myself a note somewhere else and get back to it. For example, earlier today (for me, yesterday for you), I had a thought about bad jerseys that I jotted down for a future ramble. (That’s why I’m not going to elaborate, and therefore waste material.)

I just hit the 400 word mark, and that’s a decent place to end this thing. I’m surprised that I didn’t ramble about the fact that I’m hungry, even considering the fact that I ran out of thoughts at one point.

This ramble clocks in at 10 minutes and 40 seconds.

tl;dr: Free write, featuring Pep Guardiola and a tease for a future ramble.

Links of the Day

German manager Rudi Gutendorf has died aged 93. He earned a Guinness World Record for coaching 55 teams in 32 countries.

The USL Championship match between Phoenix Rising and LA Galaxy II was abandoned after Galaxy player Augustine Williams was struck by an object.

Today’s longer read: Eni Aluko argues for legal action by players who have received discriminatory abuse on social media for The Guardian