Joy is a Choice
"I wish there was a way to know you're in the good old days before you've left them."
It’s been 20 years since Arsenal were in their last Champions League final. I was ten years old and that was the last time football made me cry, not only because my dreams were shattered by Juliano Belletti of all people - but through sheer guilt.
Growing up, I had an Arsenal supporting neighbour who lived opposite and we would spend all evening together before games, bouncing on the trampoline, whacking free kicks at each other and playing WWE Smackdown! vs Raw on the Playstation 2. But come kick off, we shook hands and went our separate ways to watch at home - apart - because that’s what worked up until that point.
It worked when Thierry Henry made the Santiago Bernabéu his own personal playground. It worked when a 17-year-old Cesc Fàbregas bossed Patrick Vieira in midfield at Highbury. It worked when Jens Lehmann guessed right in the dying seconds against Juan Román Riquelme. Real Madrid. Juventus. Villarreal. All ticked off thanks to a sprinkling of fairy dust and a makeshift back four that still defies logic.
But we changed the damn ritual for Paris. Everything was right; the garden kickabout, the royal rumble, the glass of orange squash I downed before slipping my shoes on, until I got home and told my mum I’d be watching the final across the road. She tried to tell me but I didn’t listen - and we all know what happened from there.
There were thousands of Arsenal fans across the world who could have changed something in their routine that night, taken a different route home from work, sat on the wrong side of the sofa or accidentally put their lucky socks in the laundry. But I don’t know about them. I know about me. And even after all these years I still think about how, given the chance, I would’ve stayed home and singlehandedly changed the history of this club (obviously).
That’s a lot of preamble for a singular point, but it’s not lost on me that 20 years is a long time. It’s two thirds of my life and that tiny decision manages to appear in my mind with one sole intention - to bother me. The gravity of a Champions League final was maybe too much for my brain to handle at that moment, but I was accustomed to Arsenal competing for and winning trophies. It was my normal.
We had already won two Premier League titles and three FA Cups in the years leading up to Paris, not to mention going an entire season unbeaten. We had a squad stacked with world class talent and a manager who basically shaped my whole footballing education; before leaving in 2018 as the only Arsenal manager I knew. There was a new stadium on the way (which brought its own challenges) but this was an obvious golden era for the club that we all look back on fondly.
Of course, losing that day was devastating, scarring, painful, but football moves so quickly - it doesn’t give you the chance to step back and take stock of how good you have/had it.
Which brings me to a quote I love from the US Office; specifically Andy Bernard. "I wish there was a way to know you're in the good old days before you've actually left them.” 20 years is a long time. 22 years is even longer. Arsenal have the chance to end both of those droughts and complete a historic double-winning season; which most of us wouldn’t have dreamed of when this manager first took over.
But we’re here now and these are absolutely the good old days. I’ve been guilty of losing myself in the washing machine this season - some criticism justified, some maybe not - although it comes from a place of feral desperation to see this group and this fanbase relish success. Success which I feel we deserve after falling at the final hurdle too often in recent seasons.
So much about football and the general discourse today is about denying people joy. You can’t celebrate like this, it’s not actually a tifo if the club paid for it, we welcomed the team bus first, this is the worst Premier League we’ve ever seen, what an easy run to the final, everything about this club is cringe, scanning is performative, how much do you want to punch Mikel Arteta in the face?
And I get it. Schadenfreude is a necessary evil and we’re all guilty of taking a drag on that particular cigarette. Nobody wants their rivals to win and it’s funny when they find any and every way not to. But this mass psychosis that has infiltrated the sport about Arsenal and everything they do is getting to people, which (understandably) creeps into our collective psyche.
"It's fine that people hate us, it's part of our history. We're The Arsenal," - George Graham.
Life becomes much easier when you remember that joy is a choice. I said after we lost to Manchester City that I felt even more bullish about us winning the league, and that we would all be better off with a sense of clarity. Well it doesn’t get much clearer than this. It doesn’t get much clearer than four games to define the greatest season in this club’s history.
Deciding not to watch at home will always bug me, but pain comes with the territory. Sometimes the life you’re waiting for is the one you’re already living.