Hippy Bogus - ness

There are some good nights, and some really good nights. I have waited on posting about MY team (because of an esoteric mix of factors like indolence, faineant - ness, otiose - ness, and slothful – ness. Throw in superstition just for fun). The past month has been especially kind, considering the comparatively poor season we have been having (We have never finished outside the Top 2 in the English Premier League since 1997, but are currently lying 6th in the English Premier League table).

However, this season has been different. We historically have always performed poorly in the Champions League, but this year we are in with a fighting chance of winning this trophy!

But let’s get back to the game we played against Juventus last night. I needed to watch it at the 24 x 7 coffee shop of a hotel (just the way I have watched all the other Premier and Champions league games this season) due to a ball whacked, mind numbed, groin scratching twit of a cable operator, who does not telecast ESPN/STAR SPORTS. It does not help that the matches are telecast from either 1.15 am to 3.30 a.m. or from 12.15 am to 2.15 a.m.

So I caught a movie (Being Cyrus, more about it later) and headed to the hotel, where there were about 20 Arsenal fans eagerly waiting for the match to start. The Juve fans were a little scared about openly expressing their club loyalty after being vastly outnumbered by Arsenal fans, so timidly sat in one corner of the coffee shop.

The match got underway, and I was stunned to see Arsenal ripping Juve apart. The ripping apart began intermittently but progressively became routine.

The average age of our defense is 22, and apart from Toure who has played in the Champions League before, none of the other 3 defenders(Eboue, Senderos, and Flamini) have had extended CL exposure, prior to this season. But they were in their footballing element and defended with very high quality technical ability.

Up front, in the 5 man mid-field Arsene Wenger, our manager had put out, our men there were running Juve’s mid-field ragged. Cesc Fabregas (Who recently turned 19) was showing his 29 year old former mentor, and our former captain Patrick Viera how European football should be played. Reyes, Hleb, and Pires were playing our very typical Arsenal brand of one touch football. The football being played was so easy on the eye that at times, I thought we were playing some mid-table Championship side and not the mighty current Serie A leaders Juventus. Gilberto was sitting back and allowing the full backs Flamini and Eboue to attack at will, and the pace of Reyes, Hleb, and Pires had the Juve defense chasing shadows. It was only a question of time whether the attacking football would yield a goal, and to the collective pleasure of all the Gunner fans present, with 40 minutes on the clock Cesc Fabregas put us ahead after an awesome tackle by Pires to dispossess Viera in the midfield.

The Arsenal attacks from mid-field were hitting the Juve defense like huge surfing waves on a Californian beach, and our Goal keeper Lehmann had as much work to do as a tanning beach denizen.

If no mention of Henry has been made so far, it's because he deserves a dedicated paragraph for his attacking exploits. On really big European nights (Like the one against Real Madrid this year, and the nights against Inter Milan, AS Roma in the past years) Henry plays with the aura of invincibility. He is one of the only players in world football (the others being Ronaldinho and Zidane) who can take on 4 defenders at one go and still come out of those tackles with the ball, and he repeats this kind of feat with awesome regularity. A Hleb pass found Cesc, who passed the ball a yard from where Henry wanted it played, but he checked his goalbound momentum, plucked the ball out of it’s comfort zone, and shot another magnificient goal. The Italian defenders Zambrotta, Cannavaro, Thuram, and Zebina were resorting to hacking Henry down at every opportunity and it was no surprise when Zebina was sent off for bringing down Henry for the nth time. This was after Cameronesi hacked Van persie and was sent off for a second bookable offence.

So Juve ended the game with 9 players, and Viera also picked up a yellow card which will rule him out for the return leg next week (though I suspect he did not want to play against his former team again, and get beaten AGAIN!). It will a nerve wrecking match and I will not be able relax till the whistle blows at the Stadio Delle Alpi stadium, and we have won the game!

Am I dreaming of a final against Barca a month too early?