The Emirates Cup: Another Day at the Emirates

I do not have many goals set down for this year.

I know this for a fact because on the first day of this year, my brother and I sat in coffee shop, ordered some coffee and cake, and hashed out our priorities for the year. We set out 5 main targets each, but 5 big ones. If we achieved all five, or even 2-3, the year was a success. And then we added three more, easier goals, the purpose of these being to build our momentum by ticking a few things off, and these were not small goals in their own right.

However, the reason I bring this up is, because, one of the goals I wrote that day, was that I wanted to see an Arsenal match. This past weekend, I did just that, alhamdulillah. After my experience with the Brazil v Chile match, I knew it would be easy to book tickets, to travel to Arsenal, and I knew my way around the stadium.

Furthermore,  the Emirates Cup is a brilliant way to watch your first Arsenal match. It’s a nearly-annual* invitational tournament that invites three top European footballing sides to participate, and rewards offensive, attacking play by factoring goals scored into the standings. It is named after the club’s main sponsor, Emirates, the flag carrier for the UAE, which also explains why the tournament started up only after the airline became the club sponsor.

In addition, there are three more reasons why the Emirates Cup is an excellent choice. The first is that, after all the preseason preparation**, the Arsenal are finally home, and this will be the first matches that they play in front of their fans. In a very real sense, the season is palpably about to begin. Ideally played on the weekend before the Community Shield***, the real season then starts literally two weeks after the Cup. The second is that the quality of football is better, but also more liberated. There is no pressure of fearing to lose. The pre-season is near-enough complete, the players are approaching match-fitness, the team is beginning to gel, and roared on by the home crowd, the Arsenal team should be at their fluid, effervescent, coruscating best. A spectacle should be the norm, here, then, not the exception. And the third is the unique pricing structure, where across both days of the Cup, one ticket allows access to both matches; one kicking off at 2:00 pm, and the other at 4:20 pm. Fantastic; two matches for the price of one.

I had not made up my mind about going until about a week before, where on a whim I went on the Arsenal website, saw that some tickets were free, and bought them. You could call it my Eid present to myself****.

I picked the Sunday, where Olympique Lyonnais would play against Villarreal, and then Arsenal would play Wolfsburg. The tickets arrived in the post, and, whilst not as impressive as the ones for the Brazil v Chile match, I still thought they were beautiful:

Then it was just a matter of waiting for Sunday, but I think I may have chosen the wrong day; on the Saturday, Arsenal handily thrashed Lyon 6-0 on a lovely summer day with basking sunshine. By contrast, it didn’t stop drizzling for most of Sunday...

It shows in the lovely grey picture I took of the stadium:

And also when I draped my scarf around the photo of an Arsenal legend:

And in the buildup to the first match where you could see that not many people really cared about the first match:

I was a little surprised by this; Lyon and Villarreal are both very good European sides. I would not have expected the ground to be less than half empty for this, but I guess other people have different priorities. I think most people only ever bought the tickets to watch Arsenal play, and considered the other game as a sort of bonus. In any case, I was very well entertained, as Lyon tried to show that they weren’t here to make up the numbers, and Villarreal played in their typically slow-fast-slow Spanish style. Lyon were unlucky to hit the crossbar twice, but Villarreal ran out deserved and complete winners at the end.

By the time the second match was ready to kick off, the standings were such that Arsenal only needed to avoid loss to win the Cup, but everyone in the ground knew that they would be going for a win.

And what a difference a few hours makes; the ground was packed for the “main event”:

An energetic Wolfsburg side did their best, but the Arsenal were too good for them. A goal out of nowhere materialised early in the second half, and a little rustiness showed in the way the flicks and tricks of the Arsenal players in promising positions almost-but-not-quite came off. At the other end, the new keeper Cech signed from bitter rivals Chelsea was doing the business in keeping the goal protected.

It was almost a foregone conclusion after the goal was scored, but there was genuine joy nonetheless when the final whistle was blown and the fans and players celebrated. On now to the challenge of Chelsea in the Community Shield***** and then on to the promising challenge of a new season.

As for me, I beat a hasty retreat from the stadium, and instead of walking to the nearby Arsenal Station, I walked the longer but much less congested route to the Finsbury Park Station, and there took my ride to Kings Cross, and from there to Peterborough.

At which point, I enjoyed a coffee and read the souvenir programme:

All in all, a perfect day. Alhamdulillah.

As for me, the next step is to watch a competition match for the Arsenal. Ideally this would be a European or a Premiership match, but I would not turn down FA Cup or League Cup matches, should the opportunity arise.

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August is here. I make it 5-ish months left of the year, a good 150 days. If you haven’t yet started acting on your goals, start now. A lot can be achieved in 150 consecutive days, especially if you work both hard and smart

With duas for you and yours

I

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* Every year since 2007, except for 2012, where it was not held because of the London Olympics.

** In previous years, preseason prep used to be continental training camps mixed with friendlies against local European sides. Recently it has become money-spinning tours in the Far East.

*** The traditional curtain-raiser is played between the winner of the League, and the winner of the Cup. It seems now that it is not as highly regarded as it used to be in the past, but I think this has been the sentiment no matter which era of football.

**** I think this is the first year I didn’t get Eidi. Oh well.

***** As I write this, Chelsea were vanquished yesterday in the Community Shield. Finally. Like most Arsenal fans, I really am very optimistic about this coming season.