This article was written only hours after my Tottenham Hotspur Football Club fired my all-time favorite manager, Mauricio Pochettino. I saw the news on my phone as I was walking to my car after spending hours at Starbucks writing my intercultural essays. Not exactly a pleasant surprise.
Pochettino took the helm at Tottenham in 2014 after a prolonged period of disarray within the club. The club had not won a trophy since 2008 and was on its third manager in the same number of years. He came from Southampton and brought with him a beautiful brand of football and a renewed sense of pride in the club. Under Pochettino’s leadership, the Spurs finished in a Champions League spot each of the last four years, and perhaps the pinnacle of his time at the club occurred last June when he led Tottenham to the Champions League Final, in which we absolutely outplayed Liverpool and were robbed by one of the worst handball calls in recent history.
Pochettino will always have a special place in my heart. I was absolutely floored when I heard the news, and I will probably be very broken inside for the next few weeks. Daniel Levy, the chairman of the club, surely has someone in mind to replace him, but no man will be able to replace the void left in our hearts. The top candidate right now to take the job is Jose Mourinho, who seems like the perfect replacement and honestly a great appointment for the new position. However, I need a few weeks—and a few wins—to be ready to love him. I honestly feel like I just got broken up with by a girlfriend of four years. This stinks. There is one positive way to look at this. Tottenham's slogan is “To dare is to do,” and it seems fitting that the man who taught us to dream, to dare, is replaced by Jose, a proven winner, who can teach us to do.
Another thing I wanted to talk about that occurred before my heart was broken, spit on, ground up, and run over by a truck, was how sensational my all-time favorite, way too lanky and discoordinated to be in the NBA, basketball player in the league has been this year. Will, the THRILL, Barton is the only reason the Nuggets aren’t 3-9 right now. The Nuggets’ offense has been wildly inefficient and lackadaisical throughout this first month of the season, and that is in large part due to Jokic’s apparent poor play and the entire teams’ wild infatuation with taking floaters and dumb runners instead of layups and pull-up jumpshots. Barton has come up time and time again with that little extra play that does not show up on Sports Center the next morning and probably not even in the box score. Whether it’s a three to stop an opposing team's run or a hustle rebound/put-back, he has just been everywhere, right when you need him. He has also improved defensively this year. His NETRTG (net rating) is higher this year than any other year by a whomping 12 points, and his three-point field goal percentage is also sitting at an impressive 46.2%. He is an all-time glue guy and has been a wonderful and needed surprise this year for my Denver Nuggets.
Also: THE DAWGS ARE BACK, BABY. BRING ON LSU. DE’ANDRE SWIFT IS THE NEXT BARRY SANDERS.