Franceso Totti- “I’m very happy with the team and with the fact that Paulo Fonseca has understood what it means to be at Roma. The coach has managed to transmit a positive spirit and energy to a team that had various shortcomings.”
Just wanted to collect some of the links so that it would be easier for fans to understand Fonseca. Regardless of how underwhelmed we feel in general, he is (most likely) our new manager and deserves our full support.
Cheers!
Edit: updated with interviews/press match conferences + more match analysis
The Mixer by Michael Cox (who currently runs the excellent Zonal Marking podcast on the Athletic) was a book that I thought would get boring really quickly. Coming into this book cold, with only an elementary knowledge of footballing tactics, I was not let down.
The Mixer takes you from the early days of the Premier League, and documents the changes that took place on the pitch and off the pitch: for example, how the back-passing rule change impacted teams significantly, or how Arsene Wenger was the first one to bring a complete fitness overhaul to the Premier League. It goes through phenomena like the rise and fall of tiki-taka football, or how false-nines and foreign number tens began to gain prominence in the Premier League.
It strikes a balance between the jargon and the overall narrative, and masterfully explains a complicated tale of tactical evolution through a mix of insightful anecdotes, a deep understanding of footballing history, and an overflowing love for the game.
The Mixer is the perfect book for a passionate fan looking to dig a little deeper into the game that they love and cherish. It will most likely change how you view the current state of the Premier League, and will definitely transform how you view a football match.
My Tottenham Hotspur Story: From this great Reddit thread
“What a beautiful thread.. let me add my story. I'm 16 and from India – started following Spurs halfway through last year. Was born (and still am) a cricket fan, and found myself with a lot more time + freedom during the pandemic, and turned to football.
I've always loved the Lilywhites but started to find myself relating to them a lot more this year. Always “outsiders”, always “with the potential”, inherently capable but rarely achieving glory, my immature teenage mind latched on to the team. I loved the ambition the club was showing and could not help but be optimistic about the entire Mourinho project. The Amazon doc definitely helped too...
It's been a wild ride. I read up the history of the club and learnt the fan chants. Two days ago, I got my Spurs jersey delivered. Now I'm staying up till 1:45am to watch a little bit of the FA Cup game.”
P.S. What happened to our form over the last two months nobody knows
Other notes: I'm capping off this entire experiment with Day 50: so it's #50DaysToOffload now, not the original #100DaysToOffload.
I tried, I tried, I really tried. But I failed.
I failed to properly appreciate this classical masterpiece. I wanted to love it, but I couldn't.
Two months into my adventure, I have finally decided to give up on reading Pride and Prejudice. I appreciate the nuance and detail. I appreciate the human details and all the hard work that went into writing this book. The planning and understanding.
It's just not for me. I could'nt get invested in the characters or the plot line. I couldn't read the book for longer than 15 minutes at a time.
I refrain from criticizing books because I'm neither a literary critic nor an author. This book was really just not for me.
Neocities is an interesting travesty. While an overwhelming majority of it's users seem to be self-proclaimed brooding teenagers, I believe it still holds immense value as a service. The delightful and self-indulgent absurdity in some of the pages I have seen over the last few days has been beyond anything I have seen in my years on the Internet. In an age when massive corporate entities dominate search results, Neocities tries it's best to live up to the original promise of the Internet.
And it does so in an unapologetic manner. Extraordinary gifs and splash pages, a lot of frogs, terribly intimate journals, and often downright ridiculous ideas, Neocities is a very refreshing reminder of where it all began.
P.S. As a self-proclaimed brooding teenager myself, I take back my skepticism of this core user base. Some of these daily public journals are very raw, and you can find yourself emotionally invested in an anonymous individual half a planet away.
“What is the point of love if you can't show it?”
Sustenance, I answered cooly. Detatched.
The gentle kick and soothing voice in the morning
Nudging us into the next day.
Alternatively- the violent kick and screeching noise
Shoving me off tomorrow's cliff.
“How would you find such a thing?”
You won't find it unless you believe in it.
And once you believe in it, you'll find it everywhere.
Or so they say.
The elevator's hurtling up
'Bout to be launched to the top of the Moon
When the doors close and walls close in
Shoulders clench and sentences clipped
Don't fix it till it's not so broken
Ain't now way to treat your heart
I only write inside a hurricane
On days I'd pray would just end.
People always seem to have people
I figured I'd figure it out
But how could I?
Want to sail right to the moon
And splash around in it's cold pool
But the elevator ride seems stuck
I drunk myself on my earth's beauty
The moon and all of my silver dreams
But I need to fix the elevator
That feels so broken closing in on me.
