The Hoddle of Coffee: Tottenham Hotspur news and links for Thursday, May 14

Hi, all!

We’ve got former Tottenham defender Paul Konchesky at the top today, and I will just admit that the best picture from his Spurs days available to me was one where he reacts to getting tackled.

Ramble of the Day

It’s 9:47p, and for mostly legitimate reasons, I haven’t started the ramble yet. I was busy with work until it was time for dinner, but I’ve had time for about an hour. Of course, I then spent part of the last hour thinking about a pice I wrote in college and then reading it, and surprisingly not cringing too much while reading it.

I just looked at my notes and realized I wouldn’t have an easy ramble topic. I used that Juan Foyth video yesterday. I haven’t watched the football related content on Quibi yet even though there’s that show where Joe Jonas goes to Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. (I am having a hard time getting fussed downloading a free trial to watch 20 minutes worth of content, but I think that’s possibly more of a reflection on Quibi than me.) I heard that Thomas Müller got a LinkedIn and initially thought it was slightly funny, but a quick look reveals that it was just pretty boring. I remembered that I had takes on the Backstreet Boys and NSYNC, and that it might be fun to reignite a decades-old debate, but I have a feeling this isn’t the audience. (Plus, we need space after last week’s “Summer Girls” ramble.) I just had a conversation about where my hands are when I sleep, but I don’t feel remotely inspired to ramble about that.

I have hit the first genuine lull in a number of months for the Hoddle, but months into a pandemic, we all know that lull. The lull is probably because I’ve settled into habits — you’re bound for a boring day when that happens. Even before, I knew that lull. I don’t like the lull but I accept the lull. What else can I do? Find something interesting on the internet? That’s a reasonable action, but it’s 9:58p and I’m not so sure this is a task I can accomplish quickly at this point, and I don’t want to do it if it’s not quick.

I accept the lull because the lull doesn’t last forever. Maybe tomorrow, I’ll have something to write about. Maybe I’ll come up with something extremely random to rank (more random than MLS ranking its best rivalries, which I only think of because old MLS rivalry games are casually on my tv as I write). It’s not like I really plan these things out in advance, anyway.

It’s 10:10p and I just thought of a good Hoddle topic. but I’ve already written more than 400 words so I’ll save it for another time. I guess that interesting topic did come fairly quickly, but not quickly enough.

tl;dr: A free write after I failed to come up with a decent topic, and I came up with one by the end but it was 400 words too late.

Links of the Day

Coronavirus:

• The Austrian Bundesliga will return June 2, and Serie A hopes the government approves a June 13 start date.
• Cologne’s mascot, gotat Hennes IX, will not be allowed to attend matches because of new hygiene protocol for the Bundesliga’s return.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport will hear the FA’s case against FIFA over Chelsea’s transfer ban in June.

Today’s longer read: Tróndur Arge on the return of football in the Faroe Islands and what stadiums are like without supporters for The Guardian