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Hello, all!
Today at the top is goalkeeper Neil Sullivan. Here’s your semi-regular reminder that if you have some more recommendations for former Tottenham players to spotlight at the top, I will take them.
Ramble of the Day
This will not surprise anyone, but I like both food shows and travel shows (and the several that fall in both categories). As a result, it was not a surprised that I was happy to watch Restaurants on the Edge when my sisters pitched it to me the other day: it’s Kitchen Nightmares, but the mean host and dramatic restaurant workers are traded out for nice people with nice views. It was at least worth an episode’s worth of time, if only for the nice views that will satisfy my desire to travel.
It was indeed worth the watch for a few reasons, but mainly that the show kept me engaged enough while flexing a lot of travel show muscles. The first episode was provided a special surprise: the crew in charge of saving restaurants were tasked with saving Haber 16, a restaurant in Malta owned by national team goalkeeper Justin Haber. (16 is his number for the national team, which you might have guessed.)
Haber has a long career in Malta, but spent a few years at Sheffield United and Hibernian. He claims to be the world’s shortest goalkeeper, but most of the goalkeepers that went to the 2019 women’s World Cup are shorter than him. That said, Haber seems like a really lovely guy, but is also admittedly a terrible businessman. His restaurant is in Marsaxlokk, a fishing village on an island in the Mediterranean, and for his seafood restaurant he ... imports seafood from all over Europe. (The restaurant has the other usual problems, like cleanliness and quality of food.)
Like I said earlier, any drama is exchanged for niceness and the three experts — one focused on the business, one on the food, and one on the interior design — spend time getting to know Haber and Malta. Everything gets fixed up, though we don’t really find out if his restaurant succeeds. As a package, it was an enjoyable episode — again, I am a total sucker for travel-type shows, but I did think it was funny that I stumbled upon a football thing without intentionally tracking it down (which is pretty rare for me). It also allowed me to add another entry to the list of footballer-owned restaurants that I have. (It’s not a comprehensive list right now, but if you have any that I haven’t thought of, please share.)
It was enjoyable enough for me to put on a second episode, which took place in Hong Kong and had nothing to do with football, and I somehow still enjoyed it. A show about failing restaurants with great views is obviously a random entry as Netflix continues to build an archive of reality shows with random premises, but it hits enough of the right notes that you don’t miss any of the drama of Kitchen Nightmares.
tl;dr: I watched another food/travel show (this time Netflix’s Restaurants on the Edge) and the first episode was about a restaurant owned by Malta goalkeeper Justin Haber.
Links of the Day
Coronavirus:
- The K-League will resume May 8, while Polish football set a return date of May 29. All will play without spectators. Serie A teams will return to training on May 18, and Arsenal will open up its training ground this week.
- Liverpool city council will investigate if the March 11 Liverpool-Atlético Madrid match had an impact in spreading COVID-19 in the city.
- Everton will fine Moise Kean after he hosted a party while the U.K. is under lockdown.
- Aston Villa players will take a 25% wage deferral.
Mexico forward Tomás Balcázar, Chicharito’s grandfather, died aged 88.
Phil Neville will step down from his role as the England women’s manager at the end of his contract in July 2021.
Today’s quick watch: ESPN’s Sarah Spain on the contrasting realities of retailers underestimating demand for women’s sports merchandise
Today’s longer read: Suzanne Wrack interviews Lyon’s Ada Hegerberg on recovering from an ACL injury during lockdown and the state of the women’s game during and after the pandemic for The Guardian