You can probably hear the EPL's sighs of relief over in DC... 
Saw Spurs home against Sunderland, 1996, because my English pal from JP Morgan was a multi-generation Millwall fan. "I won't take an innocent bystander to The Den, even though it's the New Den". White Hart Lane was very old, but fans were happy. Only one knucklehead charged at me, wanting to fight. I knew nothing about Spurs-Arsenal, and when he got about six feet away, his face collapsed into confusiion as he read my Washington Capital red baseball cap, the old style with a hockey stick for an 'L'. Cops in those tall helmets sat on horses as they let us out of the stadium, single-file. Altogether weird, I thought.
Outside the cops and the "sees red" fan, it was a great game. High energy, always attacking. Nothing like the slow passing, side to side at the back, that I had always seen in the World Cup as Italy played. Each time wants to win, I thought, before I read the old-time Spurs player who had said, in the early 60s something like, "We want to beat their heads in. Not let them die of boredom".
Over the next two games, Spurs and West Ham will see which team is to be relegated. Hard to have imagined a year ago.
Meanwhile, Josh Harris's team, Crystal Palace, will play carefully, risking no one, before the final of the UEFA Conference League.
