Unplanned Calamities and the Funniest Sentence That’s Ever Been Written About Soccer

A few quick hits for the next day or two while I try to contain the fallout from a life-deranging computer crash. Things went from “She may not look like much, but she’s got it where it counts, kid” to “The odds of successfully navigating an asteroid field are approximately 3720 to 1!” in the blink of an eye, and now there is perilous work to be done before I can check in at length about Euro 2008.

In the meantime, I will try to make it up to you with some contemporary art, some thwarted skullduggery, and some sage advice from a patient man.

In the latter category: I don’t want to oversell it, so I’m not going to do anything crazy like suggest that it’s the funniest sentence that’s ever been written about soccer, but I will say that I quite enjoyed this line from today’s Telegraph piece about how Chelsea have definitely/maybe concluded their coaching search:

Shevchenko, who is reportedly acting as an adviser to Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich in the search for a new manager, has told the Russian to do everything he can to sign Ancelotti, and is understood to be willing to remain at Stamford Bridge if this happens.

You can’t even analyze a sentence like that. It’s just too fragile and beautiful. Let’s leave it there, gossamer and perfect, like the miraculous cobweb it is.