The Hoddle of Coffee: Tottenham Hotspur news and links for Tuesday, August 11

Hey, everyone!

We have forward Angela Addison chatting with manager Karen Hills at the top of the Hoddle today.

Ramble of the Day

Tottenham’s men’s team may be on vacation, but they’re never far in a digital world. This doesn’t always lead to the type of thing that anyone outside of the vacation might take interest in (and there’s not a thing wrong with that), but a number of players have opted to vacation together in a very large group. Eric Dier, Juan Foyth, Érik Lamela, Giovani Lo Celso, and Davinson Sánchez have chosen to vacation on a boat in Italy together, and seem to be having a good time. Of note, there’s evidence of Sánchez dancing and Lamela admitting he fell off a paddleboard multiple times.

(If only I had a screen recording of Dier’s Instagram story from the other day, because it’s pretty funny watching Lamela fall off his paddleboard and hearing Lamela’s son laugh at him.)

I truly hope they’re following all the right pandemic-related protocols, but being on a boat with people in your version of a bubble — the colleagues you were seeing every day — seems like a decent idea because you don’t have to really mix with other people. They have, though, definitely been doing it to some degree — Lamela and Lo Celso were previously hanging out with Ezequiel Lavezzi, Dier was playing chess with Jan Vertonghen on possibly a different boat, and the group was seen with Thibaut Courtois and Kevin-Prince Boateng.

This appears to be the Big Footballer Vacation of 2020, and maybe the biggest footballer vacation in recent memory. (Then again, I don’t pay that much attention to footballer vacations.) I suppose it’ll take the place of a preseason tour this year for our fix of footballers doing tourist-type things while on a work trip. They seem to be doing the many outdoor things you’d do on a boat trip if you were a footballer, including hanging out on the beach and finding as many footballers as you can to play a game of football. (I’m personally wondering what the food situation, naturally to make sure they’re staying safe but also because I was wondering what I’d do if I ended up doing a boat vacation and if I’d have to drag some coffee with me.)

They seem to be enjoying themselves, and Lamela seemingly took the role of the friend who documents most of the trip for the rest of the group. Good for them, and again, here’s hoping they all stay safe during a pandemic.

tl;dr: The Big Footballer Vacation of 2020, featuring most of Spurs’ South American players and Eric Dier.

Stay informed, read this: Chris Gardner interviews stylist Zerina Akers on the costumes and cultural references in Beyoncé’s new visual album Black is King and starting an Instagram page dedicated to Black owned businesses for The Hollywood Reporter

Links of the Day

Atléti’s Ángel Correa and Sme Vrsaljko tested positive for COVID-19, though the rest of the squad tested negative ahead of Thursday’s Champions League quarterfinal.

The USL’s Loudoun United will play its home opener next week in front of spectators.

The number of footballers investigated by HMRC rose from 87 to 246 last season.

Transfer updates: Manchester City signed Sam Mewis from North Carolina Courage; Liverpool signed Kostas Tsimikas from Olympiacos; Leeds signed Joe Gelhardt from Wigan; Villarreal signed Takefusa Kubo from Real Madrid

A longer read: Rob Harris interviews Olympiacos manager Pedro Martins, the lastest coaching talent to come out of Portugal, for the Associated Press