The Hoddle of Coffee: Tottenham Hotspur News and Links for Tuesday, July 27

Hi, everyone!

If you didn’t get a chance, you should check out Skipjack’s piece on Érik Lamela. I will miss that master of chaos, and know we will likely never know another player like him.

Ramble of the Day

A new signing generally brings the hope of a best-case scenario or of the next best things — good form is perhaps the most realistic expectation, a chance at some silverware another. These are the realistic expectations of a player, and hopefully we never feel the need to penalize players for not achieving anything unrealistic.

It would be hard to argue that a new signing also brings the potential that a club just signed someone interesting. It’s not the reason a club signs a player in the first place and has almost no impact on job performance, and it is worth remembering that “interesting” is not particularly specific. It’s more like a bonus if a player has a remotely noteworthy off the field story to share, and Tottenham’s new goalkeeper Pierluigi Gollini comes with that bonus.

You’ve probably heard by now, but he did a rap for charity three years ago called “Rapper coi guanti,” Italian for rapper with gloves. (He also goes by Gollorius, which is maybe something we can use if he puts in some good performances.)

It’s a decent song, enjoyable in the moment and gets fairly close to catchy. The video itself is well-produced, and as imagined full of the type of quality stock imagery one would expect from an athlete. (Surprisingly, there aren’t any goalkeeping scenes and the football scenes are a bit more generic than that.) It’s admittedly unmemorable despite its gloss, though the one thing I unreservedly love is the string instrument that starts the rap. Still, I commend Gollini for the effort because it’s well-executed.

There’s an origin story that’s clearly referenced in the storytelling of the video, and I thank Spurs’ social media and video teams for asking about it. It was part of an initiative to renovate the pitch that he grew up playing on, and part of the video was shot there.

It does make me wonder what his initiation song might be. Choosing his own rap might be too easy, but he’s got the chops to try something else if he wants to. Maybe one of his new teammates will be willing to share on social media.

tl;dr: Tottenham’s new goalkeeper Pierluigi Gollini has a rap single.

Stay informed, read this: Amira Rose Davis interviewed US Olympians on the hurdles they and other Black women faced in the buildup to the Tokyo Games for Slate

Links of the Day

Barcelona and Neymar settled several legal disputes that arose after his transfer to PSG in 2017.

John Terry left his role as Aston Villa’s assistant manager.

Derby manager Wayne Rooney reported images of himself that were circulated on social media to police.

Transfers: Manchester United signed Aoife Mannion from Manchester City; Everton signed Courtney Brosnan from West Ham; Brighton signed Rinsola Babajide on loan from Liverpool

A longer read: Annie Constabile interviews Emily Fortunato, a new member of the USWNT’s medical staff on doing her part to help the team win gold in Tokyo for the Chicago Sun-Times