Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Part Uno: Mission Accomplished

Glorious, glorious, G-L-O-R-I-O-U-S. It's nights like this that make football the most intoxicating invention ever. Especially when you are risking health & career staying up into the wee hours so as not to miss it live.

2-0 to the Arsenal, just like every Gooner hoped and every pundit said we would need. Even better, it was a superlative performance by the whole team. We ruled the lush green of Highbury so comprehensively that the so-called "champions-elect of Italy" were made to look like Premiership relegation strugglers (well, almost). Ok, so they were missing two of their top players. But then so were we - although from last night's performance, you'd never tell! Toure and Eboue were both amazing. Hleb & Flamini continued to run their hearts out. Le Bob gave one of his most wonderful performances in a long while - and reminded me again how much I once adored him. Yup, that tackle was 24-ct. F diamond both in terms of rarity & significance.

And Cesc... this boy is just M-A-G-I-C. Just when you think it might simply be too much to expect an 18-year-old to be man-of-the-match for the umpteenth time this season, against a team like Juve to boot, he went out and topped himself yet again. I think he truly believes he really is just 25.

There are only two disappointments for me: 1) that we did not strike at least one more time - I know I had wished for 2-0 in my last post sent just before kick-off but I think 3-0 would almost certainly kill off all Italian hopes and we certainly could have gotten one or two more; 2) that we'll not get to play Paddy again this season. But I'm just nitpicking, aren't I? ;-)

Regardless, yes, chances are good that we may get to experience one more magical European night at Highbury. Although our ever-sensible manager says "It's only 50-50," while theirs proclaimed it was pure luck that we ran them off our pitch. Thanks, Capello. It'll taste just that bit sweeter when we kick them off theirs in Turin.

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