Like The Fire, This Editorial Is Still A Work In Progress

Let’s get this clear from the start: This editorial isn’t done.

Ordinarily, this would be both a pain in the ass and cause for a bit of heartache. On a regular day, I’d be firing up Slack right now to confess to James Bridget that I’d blown a deadline, the wine-dark shame of failure settling over me like a cowl. There would be last-minute adjustments to the schedule to manage, and the trickle-down effect on staff to contemplate.

But you know what? That’s not happening today. This editorial isn’t done, but it’s got the makeup of a good editorial, right? You can see what I was going for here, and it’s going to be pretty good once I finish it, yes? And if I can plausibly claim my intentions were good, that’s all that matters, yeah?

There was going to be a transition paragraph here about the overall hopes for 2018, how the addition of a playmaker and elite goalkeeper signalled that the Men in Red weren’t just lying about in a patch of sunlight. But that paragraph had shady representation and was in a different language, and in the end it played us for a sucker. Putting paragraphs together can be hard, gang.

The central defensive partnership of Johan Kappelhof and Christian Dean has looked promising all preseason, and could be among the league’s best. Dean’s size, aggressiveness and mobility are a perfect complement to Kappelhof’s canny marshalling. If the Fire seek tactical variation, Kappelhof and Dean seem ideally suited as the outside centerbacks in a three-man defense. Add in Matt Polster and Brandon Vincent - potentially the best pair of wingbacks in the league - and you’re going to have to finish this paragraph yourself, because I’ve got to go scout sentences in Argentina.

Look, this is hard work - it’s not like there’s a Lede Tree you can go kick and get yourself an angle. Wake up, sheeple. Sentences that make sense, that relate to one another, that lead one to a conclusion? Gaaaaaaaaah whaddaya talkin’ about - you’re lucky there’s words here at all. Ingrates!

Anyway, we’re doing our best, and there’s no reason to suspect that any potential combination of talent, effort and investment could’ve done better. This editorial isn’t done, but how could it have been? I started with two crucial paragraphs injured. And, as I’ve mentioned, this stuff is hard, and I’m the very very best at it maybe in the whole world, so I should know.

I do expect that, at some unspecified point in the future, this editorial will improve. I don’t know exactly how or why, but I don’t think that’s important, do you? Not when you’ve got the kind of faith in this idea that I do. I awake every day confident in my ability to make this editorial better, despite my manifest failure to do so at press time.