Tottenham Hotspur: So Close, So Spursy (Ep. 35)

Welcome back to Misery Sports Co. If you’re a billionaire owner has ever shuffled millions of dollars under the table to an underperforming player, you are welcome here. I’m Zach and I’m Trevor, and that could apply to a host of things. It absolutely could. But I feel like I feel like we belong here. It could apply to Titans wide receivers who we throw money at could apply to a host of things. That’s great. We got another jam packed episode, episode thirty five, Trevor Crazy, the big three five. We’re gonna carry on with our normal structure. We’ll hit up the weekly performance, review the mail room, jump into some, uh, moral victories with employees of the week, followed by our deep dive. But before we go into our weekly performance review, Trevor, who’s our first sponsor. So glad you asked and so glad that you set up the episode like that. This next segment of the Misery Sports podcast is brought to you by Secret Trees. Hey, you ever want to make more money than you’re allowed to? And your boss says, don’t worry about it. I know a guy. And you’re like, that sounds shady to me. What do you mean by that? And he just keeps winking at you and he’s like, nodding while he. And he finally say, I don’t. I’m just. I’m not tracking boss. Like, how am I going to make more money than I’m allowed? And then he holds up a finger to your mouth going, shh, baby. Shh. I know, I know a guy. Well it’s us. Turns out the guy, he knows his secret trees. And weirdly, we’re not even making this up. This. This happened. Secret trees helped make somebody twenty eight million extra dollars. Just. Trust us, it’s probably work out for you with. Say it with me. Secret trees. Thank you so much. Secret trees. Uh, I don’t know how that check cleared. I think they’re bankrupt, but the money is in the banana stand. Trevor. There’s always money in the banana stand. Zach. All right, let’s jump into our weekly performance review. So during this segment, we kind of look across the landscape. Could be one of our own teams, could be a team that we’ve covered at Misery Sports Co or maybe even a future team at Misery Sports Co that we will cover in one of our deep dives. Trevor, what do you got for us this week? Well, the preseason is finally over. Zach and the Titans finish with a two in one record. Hey. Oh over five hundred. But let’s not put too much stock in that because guess who went five and one over their six preseason games? That’s right Brian effing Callahan. So we’ll pump the brakes a little bit on the two in one record. It’s preseason. Who cares? Uh we norm. Yeah. We, uh. Normally at this time, every episode, we do our check in real quick. I just want to know, uh, I just want to know. He’s not. Oh, no, he’s not. But good news. Good news. It’s just general stiffness. Read into that what you will. I have no other news on that. Besides, it’s just some stiffness. He’ll be back. He’s fine. Uh, Zach, can I can I read you his preseason stats real quick? He had an incredible training camp. Before I get to this, I just want to say great training camp practices. Oh, yeah. Lots of highlights. The the joint practices were popping up. Here’s his preseason stats. Zero touchdowns with zero yards on zero catches. So not great. So triple teams, he’s getting Trevor. That’s what I mean. Yeah. He’s, uh, he’s really making life easy for Chimera. DK. So I got that to look forward to for this year. But I have confidence. I have confidence in Carnell Tate. You heard it here first. It’s going to happen. Let’s do it. Next week we will preview week one of the NFL because we are two weeks away. Baby. We are two weeks away from this whole thing starting. I did want to mention one thing that I won’t have time for next week though. Uh, the Titans are hosting the Jets week one. Boy, that’s an MSK matchup if I ever heard one. Oh yeah. It’s one of the two games we’re favored in. If you’ve been listening closely you know what the other one is. Uh, they just released a promotion that the first forty five thousand fans like we would ever get forty five thousand people to show up for a Titans game. Are you kidding me? Forty five zero zero zero people. Not like the first thousand. Like the first forty. The first forty five thousand people. Which means ten thousand people are going to show up, and then they’re just going to start throwing them at people walking. Double up, double up, take them. You want a box of these things. Take some to your family, folks. Uh, there are these Titans blue towels that have, uh, it commemorates, uh, the Music City miracle, greatest titans play of all time. Uh, and it’s commemorating. This is the last season in our stadium because we’re getting a new stadium next year, and it’s a really cool towel. It’s got the dots of how the play went, and there’s not a lot of sponsors on it. And I, I hate myself for how much I want one of these. Zach. I want one so bad. So much so that you heard it here first. I will be at Titans Jets week one. Let’s go. I will be there because I want this stupid towel so I can put it up in my office. I want it so bad. Do you know it’s gonna cost me? It’s gonna cost me fifteen dollars because I have to get into this football game. What is? Steve, you’re making your money back. You’re making your money back. That’s what I mean. Uh, and quick shout out again to the Mariners. We keep checking in on them. Uh, the JJ page says, hey, the pro for the Mariners, they went three and three against the Brewers and the Cubs, two of the best teams in the National League. Great. Three and three is pretty good con. They got outscored sixty two to twenty four in those six games. Oh. So okay they’re kind of all over the place. Shout out to the Mariners. Keep at it. Uh, what do you have for us this week, Zach? So I actually landed on the Browns and the Clippers. Shocker. All right, so Cleveland Browns, we’ve actually had a lot going on since we last spoke. Um there has been a quarterback competition this preseason between Deshaun Watson and Dr. Sanders. Um ups and downs right. Both have looked okay. Both have looked terrible. Trevor. There is no upside with Deshaun Watson. And yet here we are. He’s getting booed at home in a preseason game. So should started it then. You know Deshaun comes in similar to the previous game where Deshaun started and shooter came in second. Uh Deshaun was terrible. He was like five for eleven. He was just grounding all his ball his throws uh and the home fans start booing him. He gets up after the game and start saying it’s personal and all this stuff and the fans just don’t like me. I get better, you know, receptions at away games and I’m like, this is the worst press conference I’ve ever seen. He has no awareness. And yet still the Cleveland Browns have chosen to Shawn Watson as their starting quarterback to start this year. I’ll say this, Trevor, we have two away games. He needs to either be terrible or get injured and get off my team. Gracious. He’s got he’s got Trevor. Those are my only two options. What could. The other option is he gets booed. His third game he could. Trevor we could be two and oh we could win thirty five to nothing. Both of those games he is going to get booed. Stop it. Stop it. Booed not oh my gosh. I will bet you on that in Deshaun we trust I’m over it. Um which brings me to another, uh, unfortunate situation with the Los Angeles Clippers. So we’ve covered it a couple times already. This episode, uh, punishment just came down on the Los Angeles Clippers. They had to forfeit five first round picks. Steve Ballmer, their owner, got fined thirty million dollars. Kawhi Leonard got a small slap on the wrist of seven hundred thousand dollars for taking, like you said, tens of millions of dollars from these fake companies under the table. Yep. Um, I want to pose this to you because I think these are the two worst trades maybe ever. Deshaun Watson and now Kawhi Leonard. And I want to just show you Deshaun Watson. It was three first round picks three other picks almost a quarter billion dollars guaranteed. Kawhi Leonard I think with how much they just surrendered it was ten first round picks. They lost s g a. Gilgeous Alexander in the trade for Paul George. That Kawhi forced the fine and nothing to show for it. Right. No postseason accomplishments. Trevor which of those is the worst trade. Uh you know, there’s one that we’re not talking about that I think is the worst. And it’s the one you consistently forget. And I will gripe about it until I take my last breath on this earth. But putting that one aside, putting that one aside, uh, I do think that the Clippers one is worse just because look how incredible SGA is with the with the Browns. It’s like this was a waste, but it wasn’t like we have an m v p a finals m v p championship player that we were like, no thanks, we’ll ship you off. That has to hurt for the Clippers, no doubt. So you would put the Luka trade number one which I agree always. Clippers two, Browns three. I agree with that. I the Clippers are done for the next what five to ten years. Who are you gonna you can’t draft anybody. Nope. You’re screwed. It’s going to be it’s going to be tough which shame. Too bad. That’s tough. We welcome you here at MSC. But sometimes, as we all know, it sucks to suck. Indeed. Uh, so that is our weekly performance review. Before we jump into the mail room, here is our next sponsor. Are you a billionaire sports owner who somehow got lost in a trailer park? Didn’t know what kind of massage you ordered? Did one of the companies you own get caught handing your star player millions of dollars under the table? Then call Hush and Partners, the nation’s leading law firm for extremely wealthy people who have somehow found themselves in extremely questionable situations. At Hush and Partners, we specialize in the delicate legal matters that arise when you have more money than common sense. Our number one piece of advice is simple shut your freaking mouth and don’t do an interview. Seriously, don’t do an interview. Did a reporter just ask you a question? Walk away. Is the camera pointing at you? Get in the car. Does ESPN want to comment? You don’t speak English anymore. Our attorneys will handle everything. Including explaining why you have no idea what happened, who did it, or why your name is on the paperwork. Hush. And partners. We can’t make you innocent, but we can make you unavailable for comment. Uh. Thank you, thank you. Hush, partners. Uh, that’s a bold move to to release a statement that says the owner no longer speaks English at this time. He’s not available. He just he cannot communicate to you in the language in which you want to communicate with him. He’s just he lost it. He lost the English. Oh my God. And this is, of course, in reference to what’s happening over in San Francisco. Yeah, yeah. No doubt, no doubt. Fantastic. All right. Well, welcome to the mail room, where we look across the Twittersphere and give you the latest and greatest this week. Trevor, what have you got? It’s incredible how well you set up my mail room entries. Like, we could not have planned this better. Um, everything. Everything you set up was great. Uh, I got three entries for you. The second runner up is from Emil ARB. That says the funniest part of all this clipper situation is that the entire thing could have been avoided if Kawhi takes a single selfie with a tree. Just something to prove like arm around a tree. Hey, we did the thing. But because none of that exists. Can’t do it. It’s crazy. Turns out it’s secret trees. Uh. First runner up the waffle House, aka Kristi Yamaguchi. Mane says saw someone point out that the Clippers next first round pick just started fourth grade. Yeah, wrap your head around that. Oh my gosh. Just I can’t get over what was it Kristi Yamaguchi mane. Kristi Yamaguchi Mane. Fan tastic. Uh and then lobs all day in reference to our last sponsor, in which the owner of the San Francisco forty Niners was popped for a prostitution sting. Uh, lob says, who’s clearly a forty Niners fan. Lob says my owner would rather spend cash on trailer park than a left guard. What a tough place to be in. Wow. What a tough place to be in. Uh, so those are our real injuries of the week. Over to you, Zach. Woof. All right. Um, my first one is actually from Dave Portnoy, who not a big fan of his, but I thought it was hilarious. Not a huge betting guy, but, uh, he said, today I made my first bet of college football season, and it’s the strongest play of the year. Rutgers minus twenty nine point five to beat UMass by forty plus Trevor UMass just beat Rutgers at home tonight, thirty seven to twenty one wasn’t even close. It was actually worse than that at one point. So he lost some money. Uh. So bad. This this last, uh, this last tweet. It did not get through legal, but legal. Interested is legal is a ChatGPT. And we have the basic version and we only get like two replies a day. We ran out of tokens with our legal department. This one’s from at. A game called is it a quote from D.J. Lagway article or the. For those who don’t know, D.J. Lagway was is, I don’t know. Is currently a quarterback for University of Florida. Here it is. Number one Is this D.J. Lagway article or Mama? I think God forgot about me. Okay. Number two, I stay locked up inside all day and didn’t talk to anyone. Number three. Number three. Number three. Uh. And they want me to run play action out of the pistol. Why is that? Why is that an article? Uh. That is, uh. Uh, that’s the mailroom. Trevor. Who? Oh, man, it’s really too bad that our whole legal consulting setup relies on us having tokens. I overruled it. Overruled. Bad idea. Overruled. Don’t care. Oh, my gosh, that is fantastic. Oh. All right. Well, that was the mailroom. Before we jump into the office of Moral Victories. Trevor, who is our next sponsor. From the makers of Jim Bob Cooter’s stadium experience, which can no longer legally be mentioned without the following disclaimer. We apologize about the hospital thing. Throw off your opponents this football season with uncomfortable doom sounds. That’s right folks, get a whole menu of just ambiguous enough to not be sued. Sound bites to play when your opponents have third and long, like the Harkonnen chant goes like this. Nope. All right, I’ll get this out for you. Remember? You know the Dune clip where the guy is standing up going like. That. We’re gonna play that. Well, it’s third and long on the big screen. We’re gonna have a guy who’s got his arm stretched out. He’s got paint on it. It’s just zoomed in of his face and he’s going, you know I do. Oh man. You can tell your entire student section to lift their hands to the sky as a knock off, not copyrighted clip plays that song that comes on every time Zendaya is on the screen. You know the one. You know that one that’s that’s that’s not copyrighted either. So I don’t want to hear from our lawyers about, oh, you can’t play that. That was royalty free. Anyways. It’s uncomfortable. Dune sounds not legally affiliated in any way with Jim Bob Cooter Stadium experience. Oh, I’m glad he pivoted off of the original idea. Thank you. Jim Bob Cooter. Yeah, uh, it was a swing and a miss, but this one is unsettling. At the very least, it was. It was a swing and a miss because you immediately poked a hole in it with. So it’s like Kinnick Stadium. It’s like a kid’s hospital. And they haven’t recovered since. They haven’t recovered since. Uh, that’s my bad. We’re supposed to talk our, you know, advertisers up, and I didn’t do it in that situation. Trevor. I let him down. We cashed the check before. It’s fine. Oh for sure. No doubt. We got the money in the bank, baby. We’re not spending it on tokens either. You legal? Oh, man. Welcome to the Office of Moral Victories. Here we hand out employees of the week. So people who may have done incredible things or just incredibly average or even depressing things. So, Trevor, who do you have this week? Well, I’ll make mine quick. Last time it was Russell Westbrook who we said happy retirement. And as mentioned earlier in this podcast, my employee of the week is the entire UMass football team who pulled off one of the biggest upsets in college football history, twenty nine and a half point underdogs, which is a point and a half more than Notre Dame, was favored over Northern Illinois back in twenty twenty when they lost. So this was a huge, huge upset. Congrats, UMass. Congratulations. Well done my employee of the week. Trevor. Actually we’re going to we’re going to carve out a space in Misery Sports Co. And I’m going to give it to the Los Angeles Clippers fans. Right. These are people who have stuck through this insanity basically their entire existence. You’ve always been in the Lakers shadow. You’ve always had the Dodgers doing great things. And the Clippers can’t get out of their own way for decades. At this point, you have had huge signings Chris Paul, Blake Griffin, DeAndre Jordan, now Kawhi and it’s all just exploded in your face. And you’re a fan right. So someone who’s stuck with this through the thick and thin I salute you. Yep. I didn’t know if I would do that for Los Angeles Trevor. But I mean in this instance, if you’re still a Clippers fan, I got respect power to you. And you had a great owner who was like, I’ll spend whatever money you want on this thing. Got you a new stadium, got you a cool, like fan section. And now you’re starting to scout fourth grade AAU teams. Yeah. Not great, not great. Power to you. Oh, man. Well, before we jump into our deep dive, we have one more sponsor. Let me get the, uh, the old dealio going here. What? Are you a coach looking for your soulmate? Tired of dating people who don’t understand your demanding schedule, emotional baggage, or why you still talk about a game you coach fifteen years ago. Then visit coaches only dot com, the premier dating website exclusively for coaches, former coaches and anyone with terrible judgment. Looking for someone who understands why you need to watch film on your anniversary? We’ve got them. And if you’re a seventy two year old Hall of Fame coach looking for someone younger. We don’t. We don’t ask questions. We even have a special section for coaches who look suspiciously like Joey Chestnut, but insists they’re Lane Kiffin coaches only dot com because sometimes you need a new relationship after getting fired. Uh, thank you, coaches only man. Yeah, I can see it. I was really unsure where they were going with Joey Chestnut, but yeah, I could see it. It’s the second time, Trevor. That’s the second time. What with chess. What was, uh, what was lane kiffin’s. Chess. Chess water. Chess, water. It’s the second time. Uh. Oh. I thought you legitimately meant like, there’s a profile of Joey Chestnut. I’m just an idiot, Trevor. No, it’s not, it’s not. You’re totally fine in my head. I’m going. He gives me more Bo Pelini vibes, but, uh, like Lane Kiffin’s, uh, alter ego is Joey freshwater. Mhm. Joey. Joey chestnut, if you’re drunk enough. Oh, Joey Chestnut. Oh, man. Fantastic. That’s awesome. Well, welcome to the deep dive. This is our final segment. We are going to look across any, any team really in the sports universe and give a quick deep dive. I’m going across the pond. Trevor. So not only is it football season here, but it is football season in England. Heck yeah. And shout out to our friend Adam. I am going to be covering the Tottenham Hotspur. Whoo, boy! All right. Founded in eighteen eighty two. So it has been a minute. They were one of the original five teams to push for the Premier League. So they wanted the Premier League, they got the Premier League. They have never won the Premier League. So since nineteen sixty, best they’ve done is, I think second in twenty sixteen. Highest league finish since nineteen sixty two. Uh, just looking right quick, bouncing back and forth. They did win uh Europa League in twenty twenty four. So they are champions. Let’s give them some respect. Respect. Uh, but that’s actually secondary to the Champions League, which is the higher tournament. The only success they’ve had there. They actually lost a final in twenty nineteen to Liverpool two zero, which is a double whammy because you’re losing to someone in the Premier League. Trevor I when I think about Tottenham, a lot of good players Gareth Bale, Luka Modric, Harry Kane, son. Even some pretty good coaches. Pochettino, who’s now the US coach. Yeah. Uh. Jose Mourinho yeah. Went to Chelsea but they have just been churning and burning recently. So they’ve had I think anywhere between four and five coaches that they within the last few years have just churned through. Um last two years, seventeenth place finishes. Uh, last year I mean was really close to relegation. If you were in the bottom three in the Premier League, you actually get sent down to the division below you. And they were real close on that one. They were, they were, they were insanely close. Um, yeah, it’s it’s tough. I think this whole episode is an opportunity for growth for me. Uh, I have had mostly negative, terrible feelings about the Clippers and I’ve practicing empathy. And here you bring up Tottenham, which I have had equally vicious hate in my heart for the Spurs, but their fans have really, uh, have really gone through it. Like you said, they have seen some great soccer. Uh, and then last year happened. But you know what? The first thing I think of when I hear Tottenham write a very special holiday that’s celebrated all around the world called Saint Totteringham’s Day, which is hilariously a holiday made up by your team arsenal. So it is the fan holiday celebrated when it is mathematically impossible for Tottenham to finish above Arsenal in the table. And like you said last year, Tottenham almost got relegated and so last year was the earliest that they have ever celebrated Saint Totteringham’s day, which was all the way in March. And the season runs through the summer, right? Like wow. Yeah. May, June, something like that. Um, so that’s what I think of, which I think is, is hilarious. But yeah, if they would have got relegated, I mean, they just spent huge bucks within the last decade on a very fancy stadium. And it would have been wholly great to see that stadium go down to championship and you lose so much TV money. Like you, it’s impossible to keep any of your players, uh, unless your owner is just burning through cash in their pocket. But, um, yeah, it’s been tough. I did not realize they had never won the Premier League before. Not a single time. They drove for the Premier League with four other teams. And, uh, they’ve gotten second once or twice, but actually since two thousand. Trevor there I was looking at their record. It’s only a forty six percent for win percent. Now. There’s a lot more draws in soccer, right? So that counts more positively toward your points and whatnot. But only four hundred and fifty two wins out of it’s like almost a thousand games. It’s not great. It’s not. Um, loved watching Harry Kane play. He had a great World Cup. Um, son is a fun player to watch. I’ve never hated him at all. I think he’s delightful. Um they’ve got, they’ve got a team that I can understand. If you’re coming into this whole English football situation, like our dear friend Adam was, uh, he found himself accidentally saddled with this team that just never quite gets there. Um, no, they do not. And they didn’t start strong this year either. So we will see. But Tottenham Hotspur, you are welcome here at Misery Sports Co. Absolutely. We welcome you. You can sit with the uh. Clipper fans. It’s kind of towards the back, but you’re welcome here and that does it for episode thirty five here at Misery Sports Co. Don’t forget to like subscribe. Give us a listen. We’re on X at Misery Sports Co. We have our own website w w w dot misery sports co dot com. We have a Misery sports Misery index on our website trying to rate these teams. Give us your thoughts. You can submit your thoughts on the ratings. You can submit a team that you think we might we should cover um, or shout us out on Twitter as well. I’m Zach and I’m Trevor reminding you that misery loves company.