Tottenham’s confused mess of a team
exposed by Chelsea’s crash tackle king
托特纳姆热刺队内的混乱被切尔西的铲球之王暴露出来。
Spurs resemble a pile of sticks leaning against a wall and the rampaging Moisés Caicedo was happy to dismantle them
热刺队就像一堆依靠这墙随时会倒的木棍被Moisés Caicedo=轻松摧毁
Sitting through this tightly stitched but
still oddly shapeless game of football,you kept thinking: what does this remind me of?The trapped energy,the collisions.The sense of something always but never really happening.
观看这场节奏紧绷但毫无章法的足球比赛，你会不由自主的思考：这该如何形容呢？压抑，对抗。那种好像会发生什么，却又好像从未发生过的感觉。
Oh yes.Watching the full 90 minutes of Chelsea’s narrow but still comfortable 1-0 defeat of Tottenham was like staring at one of those hypnotic drunken city centre brawls that appear on social media form to time,where nothing ever really seem to start or stop, where the whole thing is just a kind of tortured flailing,but one that must also be pored over endlessly in the comments.
没错。看切尔西90分钟艰难的击败热刺就像看到社交媒体上醉汉在市中心闹事一样好像重来就没有开始也没有结束，整场比赛就像一场痛苦的挣扎，但却需要人们在评论区不断的讨论。
A man in a red hoodie is doing air kung fu kicks.Haymaker are being thrown at no one in particular.Someone falls through a fire door.Yellow-jacked man tries to break it up,wanders off,come back moving bin lid.It is undeniably mesmerising.Energy of some kind definitely being expended. But you can’t help thinking if only someone could actually land a blow,just one,they put the whole thing to bed pretty quickly.
一个身穿红色兜帽的男人在对空气踢腿，挥舞着拳头，某人撞破了防火门。一个穿黄夹克的人尝试阻止，过了一会，人们回来那着垃圾桶盖挥舞。这场面不可否认的迷人。能量在不断的被消耗。我不禁思考只要有人挥出一拳，就一拳就可以阻止这场闹剧发生。
It was fitting it should be Moisés Caicedo who provided that moment of incision at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.Not just because he was the best player on the pitch,but because this was also a game that might have been designed just to showcase his own extreme skillset,the king of broken play,the Maradona of the crush tackle.
在托特纳姆热刺球场给与热刺致命一击的是Moisés Caicedo 。这不仅因为他是场上的最佳球员更因为这场比赛好像是为了展示他那惊艳的技巧而设计的一样，拦截之王，铲球界的马拉多纳。
It was also fitting the goal was made by counterpressing, the only effective creative element on the pitch. And fitting in a poor Spurs performance that it should be Xavi Simons who made the vital mistake.Simons is a good passer, but was basically chased,
harried and generally beaten up during his time on the pitch. (Simons is an execellent passer,but he was hounded and hustled all over the pitch,and he lose most of his battles on the pitch)
西蒙斯是一个极其不错的传球手，但他整场都在被逼抢，被严防，他几乎输掉了所有的对抗。There are games，styles，formations that will suit the very specific talents of Simons.Spurs offered none of those things here(There are matches, systems and game plans that can bring out Simons’ very specific talents.Spurs offers onne of those things here.)在许多比赛中，热刺的战术和阵型都非常适合西蒙斯的发挥。但在这场比赛中热刺并没有提供这些。
Simons it was who gave a short pass to Micky van close to his own goal.(It was Simons who played a short pass to Micky van de Ven right in front of his own goal.)正是西蒙斯在自家球门前短传给范徳芬。Cue Caicedo，all over it like a one man zombie horde,walking through challenges,lunges,blocks.(Cue Caicedo,charging in like a one-man zombie horde,powering through tackles,lunges and blocks.)凯赛多，一个人不可阻挡，他强行突破，铲断，补枪，拦截。The ball eventually bobbled to João Pedro, who put it away.(The bell kandly to João Pedro, and he made no mistake) 这个球正好落到佩德罗哪里，他轻松打进了。Caicedo was excellent here。(Caicedo was outstanding here.) 凯赛多发挥的极好的作用在本场比赛。He is remarkably strong and utterly focused on protecting and using the ball。他强壮到令人惊讶完全专注在保护与处理球上。In stoppage time at the end of 90 minutes，he took the ball from Mohammed Kudus，was bumped over three times，got up，sprawled back down windmilling to win it back，a footballer who alway seems to be bursting windows，leaping across ravines，his own one-man lndiana Jones-style chase scene.(In stoppage time, he won the ball form Mohammed kudus, got knocked down repeatdly,but kept battling to win it back —like a one-man action hero refusing to quit. )在补时阶段，他从穆罕默徳 库杜斯脚下抢回了球，他被撞到了三次，然后站起，然后又被扑到在地然后站起，重写加入战斗，就像一个要撞破窗户，跳过深渊的球员，仿佛在上演他自己一个人的印第安纳-琼斯式追逐戏。
Otherwise，well what？Perhaps this game can be added to the list of things
that demad Mikel Arteta has NO EXCUSES if Arsenal don’t win the league.否则呢？还能说什么？ 或许这场比赛可以列入一份名单。一份如果阿森纳没有赢得冠军阿尔特塔没有理由的名单。
Certainly watching this kind of thing it becomes clearer。Why Arsenal are so good，so settled，so free of glitches by comparison。(Watching this,you really see why Arsenal look so strong,so organised,and so much more reliable by comparison)看到如此你就会明白。为什么阿森纳如此厉害，他们如此有整体性，如此稳定，与之相比几乎没有漏洞。
Tottenham Hotspur Stadium had been a feverish,bitty,gusty kind of place at kick-off.(At kick-off, Tottenham Hotspur Stadium was buzzing,chaotic,and windy.)托特纳姆热刺球场在开赛时气氛紧张，还刮着大风。And from the start this was like a chess match,just not a very good chess match,a chess match where neither team had any knights or queen.(From the start,this felt like a chess match--just not a very good one,with neither side playing any of the key pieces.)这场比赛从一开始就像一场棋局，并不是好的而是一场没有骑士和公主的棋局。
Thomas Frank bobbed up repeatedly，a little fraught from the start，waving a noteped，(比赛一开始托马斯弗兰克有些紧张不时站起，手中不停挥舞这报纸)whirling his arms,looking as ever like a legendary pen-European warehouse rave impresario glimpsed furiously chewing gum in the VIP section of an Oslo jam factory all-nighter.他挥舞着双手，看起来就像那种横扫全欧洲仓库狂欢派对的传奇主办人，被人瞥见在奥斯陆某个果酱工厂的通宵派对贵宾区里拼命嚼着口香糖。
Strange things kept happening.Lucas Bergvall had to be dragged off the pitch after suffering a concussion early on.
奇怪的事情不断发生.卢卡斯在开局不久就遭遇脑震荡强行离场。
Somebady threw two empty Jack Daniel’s hotel miniature on the pitch as Kevin Danso was perparing to take a throw.在凯文丹索正准备投掷界外球时，有人投至了两个酒瓶到场内。Six minutes after coming on midway through the second half，Jamie Gittens could be seen calling urgently for something form the Chelsea bench.
在下半场中段吉米吉腾斯
上场的六分钟后，可以看到他向场边示意什么向切尔西的替补席。
Finally a pair of gloves was hurled on the field。He pulled them on urgently。At that point he had touched the ball exalctly zero times。最后有人把一双手套扔进场内。他赶紧把他们戴上。在那时他还没有碰球一次。
But this was also a very good day for Chelsa,who are now fifth.但对于排名第五的切尔西来说这是一个好日子。Players and fans took great pleasure in winning this，the most pissy and spiky
of all not-quite-local London derbier.球员和球迷对赢下这场比赛感到十分痛快，在真正算不上邻里关系的伦敦德比中，最怄火也是最刺人的。The team showed spirit and will.The real takeaway was what this game said about Tottenham,and about the state of the league in general.球队展现出不屈的精神和意志。这场比赛的真正意义是揭示了托特纳姆热刺队都实力和整个英超总体的状态。
Spurs could have gone second had they won.热刺本可以升至第二如果他们赢的话
It is clearly a false position.This is a half-finished construction site of a team,a pile of sticks learning against a wall some plasterboard,some abandoned paint brushes.这是一支半成品的球队，就像一个未完成的工地：一堆靠在墙上的木棍、几块石膏板，还有几把被丢掉的刷子。
Here Spurs were just really poor.They seemed always to be passing backwards. Even the set pieces were confused.But then Frank is being asked to create something coherent out of the leftovers of discomtinued regimes，and a squad that looks short on talent，all the while playing three games a week。
在这场比赛中热刺表现很差。甚至定位球防守都出现了混乱。弗兰克被要求去创造一个新的体系但现在仍在使用那些被废弃体系的残余。这个看起来缺乏天赋的球队还要面对一周三赛。
Clearly something isn’t quite right.There seemed to be communication issues between Frank’s staff and the players at times,even between the manager and his player at the end.But Frank is also in a very strange situation, in charge of a team that going into the match were third in the league，but also under pressure to find a way of playing,of winning at home, of generating attacking patterns.显然有些不对劲。弗兰克的教练组和球员之间似乎存在沟通问题，甚至在比赛结束后表现出来了。
但是弗兰克也处在一个非常奇怪的境地，他掌控着一只比赛前排名联赛第三的球队。但球队同时也承受着压力：既要确立打法，又要提升主场胜率，还要形成稳定的进攻体系。
The entire setup is unforgivably vague. Here is a club that have had six people calling themselves the head coach in the last five and a half years, that have cartwheeled around making odd signings – £110m this summer on two very standard attackers – all the while constructing a world-class ground in which to stage events to pay back the debt on their world-class ground. What kind of team are they expecting to have at the end of this? A settled one? One with a clear sense of identity and purpose?
整个球队的架构模糊得不可原谅。
过去五年半里，这家俱乐部已经有六位自称主教练的人先后上任；他们在引援上摇摆不定——今夏花了1.1亿英镑买了两位非常普通的前锋——与此同时却忙着打造一个世界级的球场，用以举办活动来偿还建设这个世界级球场所欠下的债务。
他们究竟期望最后拥有一支怎样的球队？
一支稳定的吗？
一支有着清晰身份和明确目标的球队吗？
You might also ask why the Premier League so often does this to itself. Why does any functioning team have to emerge through a fug of incoherence, bodged planning, zigzagging strategy? Imagine if these hugely wealthy and powerful sports clubs could be run coherently, just for a while. This was a meeting of the most expensively assembled squad in world football against the team with the best stadium in the world. It didn’t exactly look like it.
你也不禁会问，为什么英超总是把自己搞成这样？
为什么任何一支原本运转正常的球队，最后都要在混乱、粗糙的规划、摇摆不定的策略中摸索成形？
设想一下，如果这些拥有巨大财富与权力的俱乐部哪怕只是短暂地被有条理地运营一下，会怎样？
这场比赛是一支世界上最昂贵的阵容，对上一支拥有世界最佳球场的球队。
可这场面，看上去可完全不像那么回事。
Tottenham’s confused mess of a team
exposed by Chelsea’s crash tackle king
托特纳姆热刺队内的混乱被切尔西的铲球之王暴露出来。
Spurs resemble a pile of sticks leaning against a wall and the rampaging Moisés Caicedo was happy to dismantle them
热刺队就像一堆依靠这墙随时会倒的木棍被Moisés Caicedo=轻松摧毁
Sitting through this tightly stitched but
still oddly shapeless game of football,you kept thinking: what does this remind me of?The trapped energy,the collisions.The sense of something always but never really happening.
观看这场节奏紧绷但毫无章法的足球比赛，你会不由自主的思考：这该如何形容呢？压抑，对抗。那种好像会发生什么，却又好像从未发生过的感觉。
Oh yes.Watching the full 90 minutes of Chelsea’s narrow but still comfortable 1-0 defeat of Tottenham was like staring at one of those hypnotic drunken city centre brawls that appear on social media form to time,where nothing ever really seem to start or stop, where the whole thing is just a kind of tortured flailing,but one that must also be pored over endlessly in the comments.
没错。看切尔西90分钟艰难的击败热刺就像看到社交媒体上醉汉在市中心闹事一样好像重来就没有开始也没有结束，整场比赛就像一场痛苦的挣扎，但却需要人们在评论区不断的讨论。
A man in a red hoodie is doing air kung fu kicks.Haymaker are being thrown at no one in particular.Someone falls through a fire door.Yellow-jacked man tries to break it up,wanders off,come back moving bin lid.It is undeniably mesmerising.Energy of some kind definitely being expended. But you can’t help thinking if only someone could actually land a blow,just one,they put the whole thing to bed pretty quickly.
一个身穿红色兜帽的男人在对空气踢腿，挥舞着拳头，某人撞破了防火门。一个穿黄夹克的人尝试阻止，过了一会，人们回来那着垃圾桶盖挥舞。这场面不可否认的迷人。能量在不断的被消耗。我不禁思考只要有人挥出一拳，就一拳就可以阻止这场闹剧发生。
It was fitting it should be Moisés Caicedo who provided that moment of incision at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.Not just because he was the best player on the pitch,but because this was also a game that might have been designed just to showcase his own extreme skillset,the king of broken play,the Maradona of the crush tackle.
在托特纳姆热刺球场给与热刺致命一击的是Moisés Caicedo 。这不仅因为他是场上的最佳球员更因为这场比赛好像是为了展示他那惊艳的技巧而设计的一样，拦截之王，铲球界的马拉多纳。
It was also fitting the goal was made by counterpressing, the only effective creative element on the pitch. And fitting in a poor Spurs performance that it should be Xavi Simons who made the vital mistake.Simons is a good passer, but was basically chased,
harried and generally beaten up during his time on the pitch. (Simons is an execellent passer,but he was hounded and hustled all over the pitch,and he lose most of his battles on the pitch)
西蒙斯是一个极其不错的传球手，但他整场都在被逼抢，被严防，他几乎输掉了所有的对抗。There are games，styles，formations that will suit the very specific talents of Simons.Spurs offered none of those things here(There are matches, systems and game plans that can bring out Simons’ very specific talents.Spurs offers onne of those things here.)在许多比赛中，热刺的战术和阵型都非常适合西蒙斯的发挥。但在这场比赛中热刺并没有提供这些。
Simons it was who gave a short pass to Micky van close to his own goal.(It was Simons who played a short pass to Micky van de Ven right in front of his own goal.)正是西蒙斯在自家球门前短传给范徳芬。Cue Caicedo，all over it like a one man zombie horde,walking through challenges,lunges,blocks.(Cue Caicedo,charging in like a one-man zombie horde,powering through tackles,lunges and blocks.)凯赛多，一个人不可阻挡，他强行突破，铲断，补枪，拦截。The ball eventually bobbled to João Pedro, who put it away.(The bell kandly to João Pedro, and he made no mistake) 这个球正好落到佩德罗哪里，他轻松打进了。Caicedo was excellent here。(Caicedo was outstanding here.) 凯赛多发挥的极好的作用在本场比赛。He is remarkably strong and utterly focused on protecting and using the ball。他强壮到令人惊讶完全专注在保护与处理球上。In stoppage time at the end of 90 minutes，he took the ball from Mohammed Kudus，was bumped over three times，got up，sprawled back down windmilling to win it back，a footballer who alway seems to be bursting windows，leaping across ravines，his own one-man lndiana Jones-style chase scene.(In stoppage time, he won the ball form Mohammed kudus, got knocked down repeatdly,but kept battling to win it back —like a one-man action hero refusing to quit. )在补时阶段，他从穆罕默徳 库杜斯脚下抢回了球，他被撞到了三次，然后站起，然后又被扑到在地然后站起，重写加入战斗，就像一个要撞破窗户，跳过深渊的球员，仿佛在上演他自己一个人的印第安纳-琼斯式追逐戏。
Otherwise，well what？Perhaps this game can be added to the list of things
that demad Mikel Arteta has NO EXCUSES if Arsenal don’t win the league.否则呢？还能说什么？ 或许这场比赛可以列入一份名单。一份如果阿森纳没有赢得冠军阿尔特塔没有理由的名单。
Certainly watching this kind of thing it becomes clearer。Why Arsenal are so good，so settled，so free of glitches by comparison。(Watching this,you really see why Arsenal look so strong,so organised,and so much more reliable by comparison)看到如此你就会明白。为什么阿森纳如此厉害，他们如此有整体性，如此稳定，与之相比几乎没有漏洞。
Tottenham Hotspur Stadium had been a feverish,bitty,gusty kind of place at kick-off.(At kick-off, Tottenham Hotspur Stadium was buzzing,chaotic,and windy.)托特纳姆热刺球场在开赛时气氛紧张，还刮着大风。And from the start this was like a chess match,just not a very good chess match,a chess match where neither team had any knights or queen.(From the start,this felt like a chess match--just not a very good one,with neither side playing any of the key pieces.)这场比赛从一开始就像一场棋局，并不是好的而是一场没有骑士和公主的棋局。
Thomas Frank bobbed up repeatedly，a little fraught from the start，waving a noteped，(比赛一开始托马斯弗兰克有些紧张不时站起，手中不停挥舞这报纸)whirling his arms,looking as ever like a legendary pen-European warehouse rave impresario glimpsed furiously chewing gum in the VIP section of an Oslo jam factory all-nighter.他挥舞着双手，看起来就像那种横扫全欧洲仓库狂欢派对的传奇主办人，被人瞥见在奥斯陆某个果酱工厂的通宵派对贵宾区里拼命嚼着口香糖。
Strange things kept happening.Lucas Bergvall had to be dragged off the pitch after suffering a concussion early on.
奇怪的事情不断发生.卢卡斯在开局不久就遭遇脑震荡强行离场。
Somebady threw two empty Jack Daniel’s hotel miniature on the pitch as Kevin Danso was perparing to take a throw.在凯文丹索正准备投掷界外球时，有人投至了两个酒瓶到场内。Six minutes after coming on midway through the second half，Jamie Gittens could be seen calling urgently for something form the Chelsea bench.
在下半场中段吉米吉腾斯
上场的六分钟后，可以看到他向场边示意什么向切尔西的替补席。
Finally a pair of gloves was hurled on the field。He pulled them on urgently。At that point he had touched the ball exalctly zero times。最后有人把一双手套扔进场内。他赶紧把他们戴上。在那时他还没有碰球一次。
But this was also a very good day for Chelsa,who are now fifth.但对于排名第五的切尔西来说这是一个好日子。Players and fans took great pleasure in winning this，the most pissy and spiky
of all not-quite-local London derbier.球员和球迷对赢下这场比赛感到十分痛快，在真正算不上邻里关系的伦敦德比中，最怄火也是最刺人的。The team showed spirit and will.The real takeaway was what this game said about Tottenham,and about the state of the league in general.球队展现出不屈的精神和意志。这场比赛的真正意义是揭示了托特纳姆热刺队都实力和整个英超总体的状态。
Spurs could have gone second had they won.热刺本可以升至第二如果他们赢的话
It is clearly a false position.This is a half-finished construction site of a team,a pile of sticks learning against a wall some plasterboard,some abandoned paint brushes.这是一支半成品的球队，就像一个未完成的工地：一堆靠在墙上的木棍、几块石膏板，还有几把被丢掉的刷子。
Here Spurs were just really poor.They seemed always to be passing backwards. Even the set pieces were confused.But then Frank is being asked to create something coherent out of the leftovers of discomtinued regimes，and a squad that looks short on talent，all the while playing three games a week。
在这场比赛中热刺表现很差。甚至定位球防守都出现了混乱。弗兰克被要求去创造一个新的体系但现在仍在使用那些被废弃体系的残余。这个看起来缺乏天赋的球队还要面对一周三赛。
Clearly something isn’t quite right.There seemed to be communication issues between Frank’s staff and the players at times,even between the manager and his player at the end.But Frank is also in a very strange situation, in charge of a team that going into the match were third in the league，but also under pressure to find a way of playing,of winning at home, of generating attacking patterns.显然有些不对劲。弗兰克的教练组和球员之间似乎存在沟通问题，甚至在比赛结束后表现出来了。
但是弗兰克也处在一个非常奇怪的境地，他掌控着一只比赛前排名联赛第三的球队。但球队同时也承受着压力：既要确立打法，又要提升主场胜率，还要形成稳定的进攻体系。
The entire setup is unforgivably vague. Here is a club that have had six people calling themselves the head coach in the last five and a half years, that have cartwheeled around making odd signings – £110m this summer on two very standard attackers – all the while constructing a world-class ground in which to stage events to pay back the debt on their world-class ground. What kind of team are they expecting to have at the end of this? A settled one? One with a clear sense of identity and purpose?
整个球队的架构模糊得不可原谅。
过去五年半里，这家俱乐部已经有六位自称主教练的人先后上任；他们在引援上摇摆不定——今夏花了1.1亿英镑买了两位非常普通的前锋——与此同时却忙着打造一个世界级的球场，用以举办活动来偿还建设这个世界级球场所欠下的债务。
他们究竟期望最后拥有一支怎样的球队？
一支稳定的吗？
一支有着清晰身份和明确目标的球队吗？
You might also ask why the Premier League so often does this to itself. Why does any functioning team have to emerge through a fug of incoherence, bodged planning, zigzagging strategy? Imagine if these hugely wealthy and powerful sports clubs could be run coherently, just for a while. This was a meeting of the most expensively assembled squad in world football against the team with the best stadium in the world. It didn’t exactly look like it.
你也不禁会问，为什么英超总是把自己搞成这样？
为什么任何一支原本运转正常的球队，最后都要在混乱、粗糙的规划、摇摆不定的策略中摸索成形？
设想一下，如果这些拥有巨大财富与权力的俱乐部哪怕只是短暂地被有条理地运营一下，会怎样？
这场比赛是一支世界上最昂贵的阵容，对上一支拥有世界最佳球场的球队。
可这场面，看上去可完全不像那么回事。