The Hoddle of Coffee: Tottenham Hotspur news and links for Thursday, December 10

Hi, all!

Friendly reminder that we’re raising money to sponsor Tottenham’s upcoming FA Cup match at Marine, with anything above the goal going to charity. Chip in if you can and haven’t already!

Ramble of the Day

There are some things you should go into knowing as little as possible. I remember multiple people saying that about Parasite, so I will provide you with absolutely no introduction to this video. Don’t confuse my comparison to Parasite as anything reflecting the content and the quality of the following video, though. This piece stands on its own.

Even if I attempted to prepare you for this, how could anyone have actually prepared you for this? The truth is that this an ad for RC Cola in the Philippines, clearly designed to go viral based on its completely unique and bizarre plot.

When I first started watching this, I thought it was a tv show or a movie — the video doesn’t start glossy in the way commercials do, but appeared uneven in a way you see in a dramatic television show or film. The technical aspects slow down as the dialogue becomes the driving force and we are thrust into a conversation where a son asks his mother if he’s adopted. That does nothing to help my thought that this might be a show or a movie.

Then the child starts taking off his shirt. After watching this multiple times, I realize the boy’s backpack has a hole in it but you only get a second or two before we hit a very important discovery: he’s got...glass cups on his back. I guess the boy’s classmates were making fun of him for being adopted because he has those, which remains mean-spirited. Adoption isn’t a bad thing, and please stop bullying this child for being different from you.

Anyway, we’ve reached a weird place but it only gets weirder. It turns out this child probably isn’t adopted, but that’s hardly the reveal: the mom pulls off her scarf, pulls off her head (the sound effects are kind of gross in this sequence), and reveals she’s had a bottle of soda hiding there all this time. She pours the head soda onto her son’s back glasses and we wrap up with what I imagine is the company’s slogan: “As long as it’s RC Cola, it’s good!”

That slogan in no way matches the tone of this very dramatically told and sort of scary story. I bet the process behind this was slightly fascinating, but I have to ask: How did a group of people even think of this?

tl;dr: I cannot prepare you for what’s in the video above, but you should watch it because if I had to, you should also have to.

Stay informed, watch this: Kick It Out’s video detailing discrimination supporters have faced and witnessed at football matches in England
Bonus watch: Tottenham’s Eric Dier and Pierre-Emile Højbjerg talk to members of Proud Lilywhites, members of the club’s LGBTQ+ fan group

Links of the Day

Former Italy international Paolo Rossi died aged 64.

Former Argentina manager Alejandro Sabella died aged 66.

A Columbus Crew player and an El Salvador player tested positive for COVID-19.

A longer read: Tariq Panja on the increasing pressure on the French federation from from sponsors and officials after accounts of sexual harassment and a toxic workplace for The New York Times