Stowe sent me this "100 Greatest Quotes from The Wire" video on Twitter the other day, and I watched it, and I was like, "Oh my God, The Wire," because I haven't seen it in a few years and this sort of brought it all back. Then, for no obvious reason, this video started tugging at my brain after the Thierry Henry handball rocked the core of everything that had a core to rock yesterday. So I watched it again, and oh my God, The Wire, because about 87 of these quotes apply directly to the game and its aftermath.

This is it. I mean, this is the entire range of possibilities represented by that match, from "the gods will not save you" to "this one here is goin' up your narrow fuckin' Irish ass." The game is rigged. No shame in holding onto grief. It's a thin line between heaven and here. Maybe it helps if you imagine Sepp Blatter as Brother Mouzone at a couple of points, but I don't think I'm overselling this. Watch it.

I'm working around the clock on something that will change everything, alienate half of you, and blow the minds of the other half, so don't think I'm neglecting this place, even if actual blocks of text with my name attached have been in short supply lately. I'm here behind the scenes, listening to Annette Hanshaw records in a posture of revolutionary toil.

Thus, in lieu of the substantial essays on horse placentas and the hand of Thierry Henry that you might be expecting, I direct your attention to the following items of note:

- Lost in the France-Ireland-Henry-justice-cruelty-tabloids-dishonor snowball yesterday: We now know who's playing in the World Cup. Is it weird that when I saw Alaska on this map, my first thought was, "How did they get in?"

- Speaking of the aforementioned France-Ireland-Henry-disgrace-tragedy-chauvinism-handball concatenation: Fredorrarci's post almost manages to transform it into an event that can be put into perspective and talked about.

- Speaking of reasons to believe that the machinery of the universe is hopelessly fixed against you: Richard's series on the collapse of publishing and what it means for soccer journalism takes an old topic and manages to say a few new things about it.

- Speaking of Frank Lampard: Who Ate All the Pies is having a debate on who is the best Premier League midfielder of the past decade. Normally I'm not a fan of lists like this, but that's actually an interesting question. Interesting sub-question: how many of these players would be in the top 20 in the equivalent list from Serie A or La Liga?

- Bonus update link on the France-Ireland-Henry-disillusion-conspiracy-agony cocktail. Barry Glendenning: "It's difficult to criticize the French for the manner in which they're handling this, if you'll pardon the expression."

Not all the water in the rough rude sea
Can wash the balm off from an anointed Scot;
The breath of worldly men cannot depose
The manager elected by the Lord:
For every FA official Griffiths hath urg'd
To impose cruel fines against our parka'd self,
God for His Fergie hath in heavenly pay
A glorious angel: then, if angels fight,
Commissioners must fall, for heaven still guards the right.

More»

Both [Robin van Persie's parents] are artists. José Ras, his mother, is a painter and jewellery designer who also teaches children with special needs. Bob, his father, is a sculptor who specialises in using discarded newspapers and other waste materials to construct football crowd scenes and has just completed a special commission — a giant frieze for his son’s new house in Enfield.

After his parents divorced it was Bob he lived with, growing up in an artist’s den. “When I was younger my parents encouraged me to be creative, to draw and play games to expand my mind. They wanted me to be an individual. But it turned out I’m rubbish with my hands.”

— The Times

Bob van Persie's diary, 1990.

November 12th

I went down to see young Robin's art class today. Had to get away from 'er indoors; she was having another one of her happenings: feminist reclamation of craft, and all that gubbins. Anyway I get down to see Robin and let me tell you, he doesn't take after his old man! He was really floundering out there, I mean, it's hard for me to admit this but the boy just isn't cut out for a life in art. More»

His name is David. He always brushes his teeth before he goes anywhere. Yesterday, he didn't have time. He called the radio to share his side of the story.

Via the Guardian:

He explained to the host DJ Spoony: "I was wanting to get to the game and I put it [the toothbrush] in my pocket and forgot to brush my teeth. I thought no one was looking. I always brush my teeth before I go anywhere. I thought no one was looking at me."

DJ Spoony went on to ask him why he was wearing sunglasses after dark. David, it turns out, is a ladies' man.

"I saw my ex-girlfriend at the game. The reason I was wearing sunglasses was to disguise my face because I like the girls, I like the women. I think I am a ladies man and I'm very good-looking."

I'm not sure what to make of any of this. On the one hand, I can't help but think that if David is just dry-brushing with a toothbrush he's been carrying around in the pocket of his jeans for the last three hours, he's probably confusing the bacteria more than anything. On the other hand, he was pretty good looking. Maybe he knows what he's doing.

Alex Ferguson, like all strong leaders, is 5% a fascist, which means he's 95% not a fascist, don't think I'm criticizing him, 95% is nineteen parts out  of twenty and there are plenty of everyday people, history teachers and flight attendants and mechanics and biographers, who are more of a fascist than he is, but there's still that fascist sliver, all strong leaders have it, and it has to be that fascist part of him that wants Jonny Evans around. I don't trust Jonny Evans. Face with a lot of social intelligence, eyes with amphibian depths. That kid would kill you for a bad idea.

Still, I'm glad he was playing today, if for no other reason than because, with the third or fourth of the offenses for which he should have been sent off or at least yellow carded but was instead allowed to continue playing or rewarded by seeing a yellow card given to the player he had committed the offense against, he definitively proved that Chelsea's new breastplates are worthless. I assumed Drogba was faking, because sure, Evans's studs had raked across his chest, but they'd hit right where Chelsea's kits have those molded artificial pecs, which to all appearances were kevlar/Batman in origin and thus designed to reduce the odds of a footballer sustaining a high chest injury to essentially zero. (A relief, no doubt, for the hordes of players who have had their careers derailed by this sort of wound.) "Nice try, Jonny," I thought, "but he's got armor. Might as well use those studs to puncture the hull of a battleship." More»

Andriy Shevchenko against Inter.

Not to turn this site into a repository of foreign-language goal videos, but sheesh.

Fabregas.

A new version of Football Manager is released today, which makes this, in my house at least, a time of hushed reflection. The old era is passing away, the new era is rising up before us. Everything we knew and loved is sliding into the sea, while before us, like a mountainous country, is thrust a terrifying and exhilarating possibility. Just like every day, really, but the arrival of a new FM makes it that much clearer. Here is the past, there is the future. Eurogamer gave it a 9, but wished more had been done to fix the press conferences. More»