The Hoddle of Coffee: Tottenham Hotspur News and Links for Monday, November 8

Hi, everyone!

At the top today is midfielder Rachel Williams.

Ramble of the Day

While you talk about Antonio Conte in the comments, I will name drop something else with Italian roots: pasta. I have (by complete accident) been sitting on a map of the most popular pasta dishes in the United States courtesy of Thrillist. (It’s an international break, so the food pivot comes immediately.)

There are a lot of uncontroversial dishes here, so I’ll begin by congratulating the United States on this one. There’s nothing embarrassing, and it’s just a list of really nice pasta dishes. I feel like there’s some discourse to be had on the appearances of macaroni and cheese on this list. I have nothing against mac and cheese and I wouldn’t never argue that it doesn’t qualify for this list, but the rest of the entries make mac and cheese feel so out of place. It appears infrequently amongst the likes of squid ink pasta, fettuccine alfredo, and gnocchi.

That’s just a nitpicky observation from an uncontroversial list, really. I wonder if the lack of controversy is because it can be very hard to mess up pasta on a scale like this. An individual can make or like some weird pasta (ask Timo Werner) but it might be more difficult for a very large group of people to disrespect pasta. It doesn’t look like, by this metric, one could really accuse the American people as a whole of being weird with their pasta.

tl;dr: Here’s a map of popular pasta dishes in the United States, and it isn’t particularly controversial.

Stay informed, read this: Robyn Vinter on a culture of racism at Yorkshire County Cricket Club, which inspired protests and some death threats over the weekend for the Guardian

Links of the Day

Aston Villa sacked manager Dean Smith after three years with the club.

Barcelona hired Xavi as the team’s new manager.

Ex-US international Chris Wondolowaki retired after a 17 year career.

Norwich fired manager Daniel Farke, ending his four year spell at the club.

Multiple members of the USL’s Pittsburgh Riverhounds tested positive for COVID-19, canceling their playoff match and ending their season.

Lazio is asking the makers of Amazon Prime’s Maradona: Blessed Dream to remove scenes depicting the club as fascist.

A longer read: Suzanne Wrack interviews Arsenal’s Katie McCabe on establishing herself as a mainstay in the team’s lineup after being on the outside looking in for the Guardian