The Hoddle of Coffee: Tottenham Hotspur news and links for Friday, January 22

Hey, everyone!

One of the MLS draft-eligible players I deemed interesting enough to mention Wednesday, Joshua Jackson-Ketchup, got drafted by the Columbus Crew.

Ramble of the Day

There are two pieces of content from this week that I think are worth making out the time for, and they very much hand in hand: the first episode of the Diaspora United podcast, and a piece André Carlisle wrote yesterday for All for XI. The hook of both the episode and the article is the first USWNT game of the year, a 4-0 win over Colombia on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, and that four of the team’s starters did not kneel for the anthem.

The episode and the article are truly worth the read — there’s a lot of very nuanced conversation and thought that I’m not going to transfer here because the original people did a perfect job of it. I would like to share one excerpt from the All for XI piece, though, in part to give you an idea of that piece and the podcast episode:

Lloyd, O’Hara, and others who use this excuse seem unaware that they’re implicating themselves in a passive aggressive — to be truthful, sometimes aggressive aggressive — act. It is an almost unexplainably dumbfounding experience to have these conversations with white colleagues, in which you peel away the layers of frustration, anger and hurt that are wrapped up within and simply by existing as a Black person in this United States, only to be met with the sort of indifference that still prioritizes the traditions of whiteness — “Ok, I hear you and that all sounds really bad but I still have to stand for this song.”

It goes back to the very simple concept of listening to people when they tell you their experiences, but I really should say that it requires more than listening. It requires understanding that many individual experiences about racism and other forms of oppression are part of a collective truth that discrimination exists.

Links of the Day

Manchester City’s Sergio Agüero tested positive for COVID-19.

Iceland goalkeeper Hannes Halldorssón wrapped production on his directorial debut with Cop Secret.

Transfer updates: Everton signed Jill Scott on loan from Manchester City; Crystal Palace signed Jean-Philippe Mateta on loan from Mainz; Lyon signed Damaris Egurrola from Everton

A longer read: Luis Miguel Echegaray on how his story of becoming an Aston Villa supporter is intertwined with his story of being a Peruvian immigrant in England for CBS