The Hoddle of Coffee: Tottenham Hotspur news and links for Monday, July 20

Hey, everyone!

The weird thing about the Premier League coming back, and finally processing that the season is close to its end, is that I keep thinking it’s May when it’s actually July.

Ramble of the Day

I’ve watched all of the NWSL Challenge Cup so far and had a lot of different takeaways, but one sort of off-topic one is that Zions Bank Stadium, the stadium where the teams played until the quarterfinals (which ended yesterday), has gorgeous views of the Oquirrh Mountains in Utah that you could regularly see during the broadcasts.

Photo by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images

Building sporting facilities with beautiful, natural backdrops is mostly a very difficult thing to achieve and a pretty unrealistic ask, but there are a number of them and I didn’t stop myself from thinking about them. Braga’s Estádio Municipal is the obvious choice in such conversations, and I’ve made the reference before because it is one of the stadiums I’d like to visit.

Photo by Octavio Passos/Getty Images

The first one I actually remembered, though, the University of Montana soccer stadium in Missoula, where the OL Reign trained before arriving in Utah for the Challenge Cup.

Photo via OL Reign

I then remembered seeing a picture of Applejack Stadium in Manchester, Vermont (as people were having conversations about the Missoula stadium on Twitter), a venue that primarily hosts collegiate matches.

Photo by Les Jorgensen/Town of Manchester

I also remembered seeing a picture of Dumbarton Football Stadium in Scotland, home of third division side Dumbarton FC and right next to Dumbarton Rock.

Photo by Colin McPherson/Corbis via Getty Images

They’re all quite lovely to look at, and there are probably a number of others that deserve some consideration. I’ll cap it here for now, because maybe I’ll do this again sometime. Like I said, looking at them (and researching them a bit) has been nice.

tl;dr: Just some pictures of some stadiums with lovely views.

Stay informed, read this: Jessica Testa interviews Dario Calmese, who became the first Black photographer to shoot the Vanity Fair cover with the July/August issue featuring actress Viola Davis for The New York Times

Links of the Day

Germany World Cup winner André Schürrle retired after an 11 year career.

The Portland Thorns’ Bella Bixby will miss the rest of the NWSL Challenge Cup after tearing her ACL.

Canada international Jessie Fleming is leaving UCLA to begin her professional career.

Ante Milicic resigned as the Australia women’s national team head coach.

Three MLS expansion teams are delaying their start dates because of the coronavirus pandemic.

A longer read: Richard Foster writes a brief history on substitutes in football, from the days where substitutes weren’t allowed to our current five substitute rule for The Guardian