They always make me wait

We'll get back to whatever the hell is going on with the Cubs tomorrow. Today, if you'll indulge me, I have an actual winner to enjoy for once.

I blame it all on bad pregame football shows and HD TV.

It was the late summer of 2006 and I had spent a good chunk of the summer watching soccer on TV, something I didn't know I had any real interest in, but I had a high definition TV and DirecTV showed almost all of that summer's World Cup in Germany in glorious 1080i, so I watched it. Because HD programming was pretty scarce back in the day, but it looked soooooo much better than regular TV that I'd watch anything broadcast that way. It was pretty much sports, the occasional movie, travel shows and Michele Beadle getting her start hosting an HD show that was just her getting tours of Major League Baseball stadiums. She took a spill during filming and had to wear a cast on her arm in some of them.

I took a liking to soccer, especially the atmosphere, the obvious skill and the intensity of a World Cup, and so that following fall, instead of watching College Gameday on Saturdays or one of the awful NFL pregame shows on Sundays, I found myself heading over to Fox Soccer Channel to see actual live sports at 9 a.m.

It was clear that if you wanted to see the best soccer, in English, the Premier League was your destination.

Eventually, I needed to pick a team to follow. I was excited by this prospect, because my other sports fan obsessions were assigned to me at birth: the Cubs, the Bears, the Bulls, etc. Now, I was going to pick. And surely, I'd do a better job on my own than just inheriting my rooting interest. And, I gave it a lot of thought.

The club had to be good enough to be on Fox Soccer Channel a lot, cool uniforms were a must, a cool name would be a plus, a fun style of play seemed obviously appealing, and a fussy French manager would be great.

OK, the last one wasn't a necessity, but one club had a built-in advantage. I'd read Nick Hornby's book Fever Pitch long before I took an interest in soccer, and I'd seen the movie (no, not the awful Jimmy Fallon-Drew Barrymore, Farrelly Brothers version-there's a much better, older version from 1997 with Colin Firth and you are guaranteed to get a huge crush on Ruth Gemmell).

Arsenal seemed like a fine choice. They were on FSC all the time, they had massive recent success with Premier League titles in 1998 and 2002 and in 2004 they became the first (and still only) team to go an entire Premier League season unbeaten. They had played in the Champions League final (a 2-1 loss to Barcelona) just weeks before my soccer interest had been lit. They had that fussy French manager who seemed to be named after the team in Arsene Wenger, and in Thierry Henry they had one of the the best, and certainly the coolest player in the world. If anything, I felt a little guilty for hopping on the bandwagon.

I should not have felt guilty.

In reality, I was showing up to a really cool party just as they were turning on the lights and stacking the chairs. Arsenal's run of dominance was over. They moved into a bigger but charmless stadium, Henry would be off to Barca in a year, the oligarchs were starting to buy other clubs (notably Chelsea) and Arsenal would lose, or just plain sell, the remnants of The Invincibles.

They were aesthetically pleasing to watch play, and they were really good at finishing third or fourth in the league for years. The league's way to handle their free wheeling style of play was to just kick the shit out of them and tackle them as hard as possible. For years, all we heard was how Arsenal was a team full of pansies.

That was never true, but fans loved to torment them with it. And when Stoke City's Ryan Shawcross ruined 19-year-old Aaron Ramsey's career with a dirty tackle that broke both of Ramsey's legs, we were supposed to believe that was just the price of playing for prissy Arsenal.

We suffered for years, not necessarily by Arsenal's play, they were always pretty good, but with Marwan Chamakh's hair.

There just weren't many trophies. Arsenal finished third or fourth in the league every season from 2006-07 through 2014-15. In 2015-16 they handily beat Leicester City in both matches, only to finish in second place a whopping 10 points behind them.

And, things would get bleak from there. They fell to fifth place in 2016-17 but still qualified for the Champions League for the 19th straight season, a run that would end the next year when they finished sixth. Wenger was out after 22 seasons at the helm after the 2017-18 season. He had won three league titles and seven FA Cups.

I love the FA Cup. If you aren't familiar it's a knockout tournament that includes every team in the top NINE levels of English football. This last year there were 747 teams in it. Nobody has won it more times than Arsenal's 14. But for most of my Arsenal fandom, it's the only thing they ever won, which took a little of the charm off of it and added a tinge of desperation to the whole thing.

By the time Arsene left, the club was wholly owned by the Kroenke Family, the same bunch who moved the Rams from St. Louis to LA, and who also own the Denver Nuggets, Avalanche and Rapids. The old man, Stan, made his money the old fashioned way, he married one of the Wal-Mart heirs.

Stan is worth $29 billion, and he's not spending much of it on his hair pieces.

He put his son, Josh in charge of being the only one in the family really paying any attention to Arsenal and after firing Wenger, Josh's first big decision was who to hire as the new manager. One finalist was Unai Emery, an accomplished manager who had won big in Spain's La Liga, but who had been pushed out after two seasons at Paris Saint-Germain, because his bosses were not happy with the club's performance in the Champions League and because the players all wanted to beat him up.

The other finalist was Mikel Arteta, just 36 years old and two years removed from ending his playing career at Arsenal. Arteta was a solid player who would have been really good if he hadn't been slow as shit, but also was a guy who everyone he had ever played with knew would be a manager some day. Arteta had turned down a chance to work for Arsenal upon his retirement to join Pep Guardiola's staff at resurgent Manchester City.

Arsenal did Arteta a favor and hired Emery, who spent just 18 months at Arsenal, the whole time looking like he had a very severe toothache. He had a bad club, and his best player, Pierre Emerick-Aubameyang was good at two things, scoring the only goal in 3-1 losses and being late to the stadium for games. Emery never really had much of a chance.

Arsenal finished fifth in his only full season and were in eighth in November 2019 when he was fired. Arteta was hired shortly after Christmas, seemingly excited to take over a real fucking mess. He knew what he was getting into. Just weeks before he had been on the sidelines as City pantsed Arsenal at a half-full Emirates Stadium.

In March 2019 Arteta contracted COVID-19 from Olympiacos owner Evangelos Marinakis before a Europa League match and days later the Premier League shut down for three months. For a while, that seemed like it would be Mikel's biggest managerial legacy.

But then Arsenal won the FA Cup again, in an empty Wembley Stadium. One half season, one pandemic and a trophy, not a bad start.

Emery is now the manager at Aston Villa, and, unsurprisingly is very good at his job. But he still looks like he has a toothache all the time.

Under Arteta and Technical Director Edu Gaspar, Arsenal engaged in a full rebuild. They dumped Aubameyang and pretty much everybody else, and started to build the club around talented young players like Bukayo Saka, Gabriel Martinelli, Emile Smith-Rowe, Aaron Ramsdale and William Saliba.

There was an article in The Athletic earlier this week where they talked about Arsenal did a study of their main title contender opponents to determine when their best players would be aging out so they could build a team to peak at just the right time. This really smells like bullshit. All you need to "study" something like that is the ability to read a roster of birth dates and do a little basic math. But anyway...

In 2021-22 they finished fifth in the Premier League, which seemed to any objective observer like tangible progress. But soccer fans love nothing more than demanding the head of their manager during every season, and on the outside at least, Arteta's head seemed to be on the chopping block.

That handsome head was saved in part, by a TV show. During that season, Arsenal had been the subject of Prime Video's all-access All Or Nothing series, and it gave fans a look at what was going on behind the scenes. The on field product hadn't been great, but it was impossible not to be impressed by what Arteta was doing with his very young club. Even with his heavily Spanish-accented English he was an effective communicator, and his wild sideline intensity (which he has tamped down quite a bit, but still pisses off other teams and their fans) seemed less troublesome when you saw him with his players.

Public outcry for his firing waned, and his 2022-23 team was really good. They finished second after leading the league for most of the season. A back injury to Saliba down the stretch was costly, but more so was blowing two goal leads in the second half in back to back draws at Liverpool and West Ham. They set a dubious record, leading the league for the most days (248) without winning it.

It was about that time when I realized just how much this shit meant to me. Over the years they had gone from a fun distraction and second tier addition to my fandom, to something that lurked not far below my delusional affection for the Cubs and Bears.

They really seemed poised to take the next step in 2023-24. They had been so good the year before and made huge additions to the squad in the offseason. Most notably, Declan Rice, one of the best midfielders in the world who they convinced to join them over Man City. They also added Ajax defender Jurrien Timber to add much needed depth there, and though they had a good goaltender in Ramsdale, they added David Raya on a full-season loan (that was always agreed to become permanent) from Brentford. They also continued their oft-botched tradition of signing players from Chelsea when they added Kai Havertz and we all rolled our eyes so hard we nearly passed out.

The season featured a unbelievably horse shit VAR ruling that directly cost Arsenal two points in the standings. At Newcastle in November, the tying goal by the hosts was reviewed for three different violations. The ball had gone out of bounds before former Arsenal player Joe Willock retrieved it and fired a cross to teammate Joelinton (not Joe Linton), who shoved Arsenal defender Gabriel in the back before heading it to an offsides teammate Anthony Gordon who knocked it in for a goal. If VAR had ruled that any of those three things had happened (and they all did) the goal would have been disallowed. They didn't. During the nearly five minute on-field delay while the replays were reviewed Willock told his former teammates that the ball was out of bounds when he kicked it. How fun.

The big additions were a mixed bag. In the first half of the season opener Timber tore his ACL and would make just a second token appearance in the final game of the season. Rice was every bit as good as advertised. Havertz was such a basket case to start the season that in a game at Brentford at the end of September, Saka was ready to take a penalty kick and decided to let Havertz have it to get him some confidence. Havertz converted and all was well with the world, or something.

And Raya proved pretty quickly to be a massive upgrade in goal over Ramsdale. It wasn't a case of Ramsdale being bad, it was just Raya being really fucking good.

Arsenal led the league at Christmas for the second straight season and would finish the year without a loss in four matches against the other two best teams in the league, Man City and Liverpool (Arteta is the only manager to through a season without a loss to either Liverpool's Jurgen Klopp or City's Pep Guardiola). It looked like Liverpool would be the biggest obstacle to Arsenal finally winning the league for the first time in 20 years. Arsenal finished strong, going 16-1-1 in their final 18 games. The only problem? Fucking City never lost, and went 21-3-0 to finish the season, winning the league by two points. The same two points the VAR non-rulings cost Arsenal way back in November.

Back to back second place finishes with a really good young team gave everyone the feeling that it was finally Arsenal's year going into last season. Klopp retiring didn't hurt those feelings. And yet, key injuries continued to slow them, and while they finished second again (the first team to finish second in the Premier League in three straight years since Wenger's Arsenal teams did it from 1999 to 2001), they faded and never seriously threatened Liverpool. They did advance to the semi-finals of the Champions League for the first time since 2008, where they got bounced by PSG losing 1-0 at home and then 2-1 in Paris. They had a shitload of chances to score early in the second leg and blew them all.

And all of that set up what just happened. With Edu off to be whatever the Global Head of Football at Nottingham Forrest is, his successor Andrea Berta went about building up enough quality depth on the roster to allow Arsenal players to tear the requisite amount of ligaments and tendons to compete in four competitions (FA Cup, Carabao Cup, Premier League and Champions League) simultaneously. The biggest addition was supposed to be striker Victor Gyorkeres, but it ended up being the surprise last-minute transfer of Eberechi Eze, a former Arsenal academy player who had bounced around and become a star at Crystal Palace. To make it even better, Eze was moments away from agreeing to terms with Arsenal's arch enemies Tottenham Hotspur, when he called Arteta to give Arsenal one last chance to sign him, something Berta belatedly jumped at, because Havertz had been injured in the season's opening match.

Gyorkeres takes a lot of shit for not being more of a star player and "only scoring goals against bad teams" but even if that nonsense were true, not scoring enough goals against teams in the mid and bottom of the table had haunted Arsenal in recent years. What he should get shit for is his Bane mask goal celebration which is about as fresh as a Foghat concert.

Arsenal got off to a flying start. In their first three games of the season they had to play at Man U (won 1-0) and at Liverpool (in a game where neither team seemed interested in trying to score, and Arsenal eventually lost 1-0 on a ludicrous free kick by Dominic Sbozoszlai whose last name is the same as the submarine in the last two Mission: Impossible movies...don't fact check that), and were playing the best soccer in the world by October. They thoroughly humiliated Spurs (something whose bar is very high) 4-1, including a hat trick by Eze, and demolished Bayern Munich in the Champions League. Neither Liverpool or City could get out of second gear and it looked like Arsenal would cruise to their long-awaited league title.

One of the best parts of this season is that if anyone asks an Arsenal fan about the 4-1 win over Spurs, the correct way to reply is to ask, "Which one?"

But by the spring, injuries had piled up for the Gunners again, and City had figured its shit out. This was not a typical City club, they are still great in attack, but weak at the back, which means they will surrender goals in situations they never used to, but they were back to winning a lot of matches by a lot of goals. Under Guardiola, City had never lost a race to the finish against anybody. If they put themselves in a position to catch you, they did. You were fucked.

Things got a little nervy.

At one point there was talk of Arsenal winning all four competitions, and indeed they made the finals of the Carabao Cup, a competition they have played in (the name of the damn thing changes every few years depending on what third-tier corporation buys the rights) for more than 60 years and won just twice, and not in the last 30 years. This was their 11th trip to the finals and City kicked them all around Wembley for two hours in 2-0 loss.

They bowed out of the FA Cup in the quarterfinals with a loss at Southampton, a team that was relegated to the Championship a few years ago and who just pissed away a prime chance at promotion back to the Premier League by admitting to filming an opponent's practice. They were banned from the play-in as a result. Not only was it not the first time they'd spied on an opponent, their defense was that it's not a big deal because they've never won a match after doing it. Brilliance on display.

Arsenal had spent the entire season looking like, and actually being, the best team in England. They were brushing off lame criticisms that they were boring to watch, could only score from set pieces, were too physical on defense (So they used to be too soft and now they're too hard? Make up your minds.), blah, blah, blah.

But with City turning things on, a loss at home to Bournemouth had fans in a panic. Next up was a fixture at City with the lead down to just five points and City had a game in hand, which had the effect of making the lead feel like just two.

Arsenal started tentatively but were level at 1-1 when City's square headed cyborg, Erling Haaland scored to put them up 2-1. Arsenal finally took their self-imposed shackles off and created several great chances to level but missed all of them. The most painful was when Eze hit the post on what appeared to be a sure goal.

The game over, it appeared the season was lost, too. While most of us were angrily throwing things at our TVs, Rice was seated on the pitch at the final whistle doing this:

Sure, Declan. That's a nice thought. But we all know better.

But when City unexpectedly drew at Everton with five games to go it reopened the door for Arsenal. Win out and the title would still be yours.

It was never easy, it was rarely pretty, and Arsenal scored just six goals in their next four matches. When you allow zero in all of those games, it turns out it's enough.

City was dominating, winning 3-0 against both Brentford and Palace, but when Arsenal survived a nervy 1-0 home win over bottom of the table, already relegated Burnley, (on yet another set piece, delivered perfectly by Saka and headed in by Havertz) they were just a win in their final match against Palace away from finally winning it all again.

Nobody was looking forward to that match. Burnley is fucking terrible and Arsenal couldn't put them away, and while they should have won at Palace in the finale, it was terrifying to think of what it would be like if they didn't.

City had that game in hand to play before the final weekend, and they headed to Bournemouth on Tuesday night, where a win would set up the angsty finish to the season, but a loss or a draw would end it. Arsenal's lead would be five with just one match left and the trophy would be theirs.

Bournemouth was a fitting opponent for this spot. Their win at the Emirates last month had been the nudge that started Arsenal rolling down the hill. But they are a genuinely good team, currently sixth in the league, who hadn't lost a league game since January 3 when Arsenal beat them at their place.

Arsenal's players felt confident enough to set up a watch party at their training ground. Arteta was too nervous to attend. He went home to actively not watch the game, and instead to go outside and cook some meat. His childhood friend Adoni Iraola is Bournemouth's outgoing manager (football is weird, gang), and it was in his hands for the next couple of hours.

And sure enough, Bournemouth led 1-0 in the third minute of stoppage time, when a wild sequence ended with the square headed Cyborg, Haaland getting an impossible amount of velocity off a rebound off the post to carom one in from the opposite post to tie it. City made one last mad dash attempt to win it and prolong the season. When a Bournemouth clearance went bad, City had the ball and seven men camped out in front of goal, but nothing came of it. Bournemouth finally cleared it to safety, the whistle blew, and Gabriel Arteta ran out of the house to the grill where Mikel had no doubt burned something beyond recognition to tell his dad that they were the champions. But Mikel already knew, because his entire neighborhood had filled with screams of joy out of countless open windows.

No kid dreams of the moment in the future when they will win a championship, of standing in front of a TV in their practice facility with their teammates, coaches and staff. But you know what? It looks like a hell of a lot of fun.

How did the fans react? Well, many thousands of them spontaneously ran to an empty stadium to just be together to savor it.

And, for this bunch it will never be quite this hard again. They clearly showed the strain of coming so close three years in a row and missing. It took all they could muster to not do it again. But they didn't. You don't win a Premier League title by chance. It's too hard. There are no playoffs to back into and get on a roll. You play everybody else twice and that's it. Put up or shut up. Everybody deals with injuries, so nobody wants to listen to you complain about yours. Everybody gets bad calls against them. Everybody sees points slip away at the death with a flukey goal against in the waning moments of a match. It's how you react and deal with those things that matters.

In a wild twist of fate this year, VAR helped save Arsenal. With just three games to go they were hanging on to a 1-0 lead at West Ham, who were fighting for their own lives on the opposite end of the table. The Hammers appeared to have scored a kick in the nuts goal in the fading moments of the match, only to have it disallowed because not one, but two West Ham defenders were holding Raya (one of them was strangling him) as he leapt to catch a corner kick. It was clear as day that it's exactly what had happened, but no team, least of all Arsenal, feels safe to rely on VAR.

But...

Now, their Sunday match at Palace is just a nice little kick about with the boys. One that will end with their long awaited trophy raising.

And this coming Saturday they are off to Budapest for a rematch with PSG in the Champions League final. This club that not so long ago seemed so close to blowing it all, can still accomplish a historic treble.

They already have the Premier League, they can win the Champions League, and, Spurs might get relegated today. It's all happening.

Twenty years after I decided to try my hand at actually getting to pick one of my favorite teams instead of just inheriting it, I finally get my reward. Turns out it doesn't matter how I come about them, they make me wait.

And, it also turns out that it's always worth it.

Eventually.