A microbrewery, the UK’s longest bar, fine dining, and more stuff that has nothing to do with football
(Tottenham Hotspur)
Tottenham launched a new microsite on Friday, hawking the premium lounges of their new stadium, which is set to be complete for the 2018/19 season. At least, they claim it’s a stadium. But from the looks of the computer generated images they’ve created, it looks more like a high-end airport terminal.
The H Club will be for members only and will “offer a range of Michelin-star calibre dining experiences.”
(Tottenham Hotspur)
“I heard there was a football match happening somewhere in this building.”
“Surely you jest!”
The Tunnel Club (which will cost a more £9,000-per-year to join) will be “the first purpose-built, glass-walled tunnel club in the UK.” Ideal for people who think footballers are best viewed like animals in a zoo.
(Tottenham Hotspur)
“Ha! These gentlemen have all worn matching clothes!”
The first stadium microbrewery in the world? You know it’s going to have that.
“I bought a season ticket just for the rotisserie chicken!”
A loge section that looks like something out of Star Trek: The Next Generation? Got it.
“The bars around each table help limit human interaction!”
It will even have the longest bar in a UK stadium.
“That green space down there really should be turned into conference rooms.”
Tottenham’s new stadium: Watch a Spurs match…or catch a flight to Dubai. I’m not really sure.
The unfathomable greed of modern footballers goes too far
(Oscar/Twitter)
Remember Oscar, the former Chelsea player who recently moved to Shanghai SIPG for £400,000 a week? Well, now he has apparently taken up a side job as a piano player in a mall, showing just has deep his unquenchable thirst for money runs.
Oscar posted a video of himself performing his new side gig on his Twitter account and it looks like no one in the mall (except for the person filming) paid much mind to the Brazil international at the piano.
So what’s next for Oscar? A job working the night shift at a fast food restaurant? Taxi driver? Janitor at a public swimming pool? When will enough be enough?
“[Arena] will bring an atmosphere where wearing the U.S. shirt will matter again. It will mean everything. And that’s always been our foundation. No matter how good you think we’ve gotten at football, our foundation has always been our hard work, our willingness to go down to places and put in a shift. I think we got away from that a little bit.”
“I think it slips away because you bring in …,” Howard began, before pausing for thought. “Jurgen Klinsmann had a project to unearth talent around the world that had American roots. But having American roots doesn’t mean you are passionate about playing for that country.”
“I know there were players that came in that it didn’t matter as much to,” Howard said. “If you get enough of those players, one or two can get found out, but if you get enough of those players you lose sight of what you are all about. While it was a good idea in theory, it had its flaws. Bruce will 100% get that back.”
Fans of the U.S. have heard this before from Abby Wambach and Landon Donovan and the argument against foreign born internationals remains as absurd now as it was then. To repeat, foreign born players have been a part of the U.S. team and many, many others—from bad ones to World Cup winners—since the beginning of international football. This is nothing new, nor is it unique to the U.S. team.
But what makes Howard’s comments even worse than Wambach or Donovan’s is 1) Howard took a year off from the national team after the 2014 World Cup, so he’s in no position to question anyone’s passion for the team, and 2) Unlike Wambach or Donovan, who spoke out after retirement, he’s saying this as an active member of the team. In other words, he has to face the players he’s questioning in the dressing room. How exactly are these comments going to help the team handle the challenges they face in qualifying for the World Cup as a unified force?
If the response from Jermaine Jones, one of those foreign born members of the team, are any indication, they are already causing tension.
“It’s dangerous stuff where you have to be careful what you’re saying,” said Jones, who signed with the LA Galaxy on Wednesday after spending half a season alongside Howard with the Colorado Rapids.
“With all the respect for Timmy, I feel it’s not if you’re half American or full-American. It’s more what you have in here [taps his chest].
“If you go on the field and you give everything for this country, then of course sometimes there’s a situation where you’re not playing good.
“But it’s normal. That can happen to everybody, and that’s what you have to understand.”
Maybe the real problem for the U.S. team is mistrust and resentment of foreign born teammates (and maybe coaches, too) from those who feel they have more of a right to be on the team than others who have the very same right. Maybe Tim Howard and those who share his sentiment should worry more about improving themselves than questioning the arbitrarily defined commitment of others.
Making Wenger v Mourinho look like a middle school dance
Honduras beat Panama 1–0 in the Copa Centroamericana and after the match, the handshake between the manager turned into a throat grab.
Honduras manager Jorge Luis Pinto, who led Costa Rica to the 2014 World Cup quarterfinals, appeared to set off Panama’s Bolillo Gomez with something he said, prompting a finger wag followed by the two doing an aggressive waltz.
Journalist Juan Arango later reported that an accusation over Panama’s 1–0 win over Honduras in World Cup qualifying back in November was what set Gomez off.
Bolillo Gomez just said that Pinto said that Panama bought the ref in their WCQ. That led to the skirmish.
The incident was reminiscent of Arsene Wenger shoving Jose Mourinho back in 2014, but this looked like it would’ve gotten worse if Gomez and Pinto weren’t separated by dudes with guns on their hips.
Honduras currently sit atop the table through three matches in Copa Centroamericana, while Panama sit fourth in the six-team competition to decide Gold Cup qualification.
This is what you get when you let focus groups dictate your identity
(Juventus)
Rarely do fans ever like even the smallest of changes to their favorite club’s badge, so it should come as no surprise that the reaction to Juventus’ new logo has been less than glowing. What is surprising, however, is just how different it is.
Juve’s crests from 1897 to now
The new logo—and it’s important to note that it’s being called a logo, rather than a badge, crest, or anything else that traditionally represents a football club rather than a corporation—boils down elements from previous badges to a minimalistic remnant so subtle that you need to analyze it like the Zapruder film to identify them.
Juventus’ objective is to grow in terms of presence and influence and to expand the business side of the club through a series of radically innovative initiatives, targeting both Bianconeri fans all over the world and those with less of an interest in football.
Black and White and More represents the start of a host of events relating to the Academy, immersive retail formats and a range of unique physical and digital products and services.
Translation: Juve would rather be Berkshire Hathaway than a football club. Sure, that might make sense for a traditional business. But business conglomerates don’t have fans. What Juve seem to be forgetting is that the reason people give them money is because those people have formed a personal relationship with the club. If they alienate themselves from those people in an attempt to become everything to everyone, they risk becoming nothing to anyone.
The transformation also encompasses a brand-new visual identity. The result of a bold, uncompromising approach, the new visual identity turns the sport’s traditional style on its head and sets about blazing a new trail.
A blazing new trail of unidentifiable blandness.
It is an iconic, simple design centred around sharp lines and will surely steal the spotlight no matter where it is used. The design brings to mind a famous line from Gianni Agnelli: “I get excited every time I see a word beginning with J in the papers.”
So they’ve made the new logo two J’s having sex?
“No club in Europe has so far been able to transcend sport and convey the philosophy behind that,” explains Manfredi Ricca, Chief Strategy Officer for EMEA & LatAm at Interbrand, who teamed up with Juventus to develop the identity and concept of Black and White and More.
“If there is one club capable of taking that step, it’s Juventus — the brand is synonymous with ambition and excellence and these are principles that can inspire truly unique experiences. The new visual identity has been designed to boldly take the club’s spirit into new, unexpected realms.”
Like the bargain bin at a discount store?
Here’s how the logo will look on Juve’s kits next season (viewed through the gun-barrel opening of a James Bond film?)…
When you want to make your dissatisfaction known in a not so subtle fashion
Dutch club Heracles Almelo had a disastrous first half against Groningen on Saturday, conceding three goals in a span of nine minutes. So when the groundsman came out at halftime to clear a layer of snow off the pitch with his plow, he left a very distinctive and purposeful design for the television cameras. A giant penis.
It’s clear that this was no accident, but it didn’t inspire a second-half comeback from the home side. Groningen pushed their lead to 4–0 before Heracles finally scored a consolation goal in the 90th minute. In short, they really ballsed this one up.
It’s always special when an animal invades a football match. For a brief moment, all the viciousness and invectives melt away as everyone comes together to coo over the unexpected presence of a creature that cares not for our silly human past-times.
A Liga MX match between Pachuca and Chiapas achieved one of these special moments in the 66th minute when a dog bolted up the pitch. Play was halted as the pup pranced around at its leisure before getting rudely taken away by a group of stewards who used a belt as a makeshift leash.
Normally, this would be all the animal action one could hope to see during a match. But then, in the 85th minute, a cat appeared. It just sat near the corner flag, as if to say “I am a cat and I am also here, but I do not have to run around to interrupt your stupid game like that equally stupid dog.”
The cat made a hasty escape when the referee approached it, but the job was done and, to my knowledge, this is now the first time a single match has been invaded by both a dog and a cat. And within a span of 20 minutes, no less! This, my friends, is an occasion that future generations will wish they were around to see.
After the match, which Pachuca won 1–0, the club tweeted a photo of the dog in their dressing room. We can only assume that the cat, meanwhile, took up residence in the owner’s box.
Beating Leicester City 3–0 and fending off questions about Diego Costa’s absence is enough to make anyone work up an appetite, so when Chelsea manager Antonio Conte sat down for his post-match press conference and spotted a journalist eating a piece of cake, he couldn’t resist.
First Conte asked if it was good and expressed his jealously before working up the nerve to ask for a bite, which he was granted.
Ashton Surber, who plays for NAPA Rovers in the Guam Premier League, came up with a rather unique idea for a marriage proposal. He made up a T-shirt that read “Marry me?” and wore it under his kit during a match against Guam Shipyard, hoping to pop the question after scoring a goal.
This is a gutsy move for a number of reasons, not least of which is the uncertainty of scoring the necessary goal. But Surber not only scored—he did it with a lovely overhead kick from close range. He then got up and ran towards his significant other and pulled off her shirt to reveal the message. While he waited for response, the referee jogged up behind him and showed him a yellow for removing his shirt, most likely unaware of the meaning behind the act.
Surber posted the video above to YouTube (complete with modified soundtrack) along with the caption:
the only goal that could ever matter in my life, is the one i score to make you my wife… yesterday i asked my biggest fan if she would watch my games for the rest of her life…she said yes. #goals #literally
I wanted to give my biggest fan the proposal she’ll remember for a lifetime and then some…
The booking didn’t have any impact on the result as Surber’s Rovers went on to win 5–1, though it would’ve been clever planning if he got himself booked a second time so he could get hitched and have a quick honeymoon while serving his suspension.
It’s amazing what a difference a few wins can make
Just a few short months ago, Jose Mourinho was getting sent off for kicking water bottles and replicating the misery of the David Moyes era at Manchester United. He was feeling confined in his luxury hotel room as his uncharacteristic inability to get results, which began the year before at Chelsea, sapped him of his vibrancy.
But now it’s 2017 and Man United have turned things around. They’ve won nine matches in a row and they’ve gone unbeaten in their last 15. Mourinho’s sense of humor appears to have returned with this vindication, as evidenced by his decision to answer the phone of a journalist when it rang during his Friday press conference.
Three months ago, Mourinho likely would have smashed the offending device with his bare hands while cursing at the assembled reporters in a language of his own creation, but now that some of the pressure has subsided, he can laugh again. And the way things are going, he will soon be able to Arsene Wenger again, too.
