Part 2  of our Aaron Ramsey series is by @kaltume_b

Throughout History, and especially during Arsene Wenger’s tenure, Arsenal has built a reputation as a club that offers nascent talent a chance to have a shot at the big stage.  Amongst the many, there appeared Aaron Ramsey.

At the tender age of 17, the Welshman was seen as one of the most talented British Midfielders. A keen athlete and avid rugby player as a young school boy he eventually chose football as his main passion.  Starting at the Caerphilly RFC Youth Development Program, Ramsey then went on to join the youth academy at Cardiff City.

After working his way through the youth ranks he eventually got his first team debut against Hull City in the last game of the 2006/2007 championship season, becoming the youngest ever player to play for Cardiff City at the age of 16years and 124 days. Aaron enjoyed a breakout season in 2007 that saw him make 22 appearances and play in the 2-0 FA Cup final defeat to Portsmouth.

The manager’s detailed promise of how he could help Aaron improve as a player, plus how he had been able to bring up, nurture and give opportunities to other young talented players were words enough to sway the Welsh midfielder to make the move to Arsenal. Ramsey felt that Arsenal wanted him more than the other clubs -yes eat your heart out Fergie-, “they had a plan set out for me and knew how exactly to improve me”.

So began Rambo’s journey in Arsenal and like every journey there are few unexpected twists and turns along the way and his has been no exception.

He started out brightly making his debut for the first team in the Champions League third round qualifying match against FC Twente in August 2008, the league in September providing an assist for Adebayor. Such was the belief and faith in his talent and potential that the manager was willing to give him a chance so early in the start of his Arsenal career.

He was making steady progress that was brought to a shocking untimely halt at the Britannia Stadium in 2010 when a tackle by Stoke City defender Ryan Shawcross left him with a double fracture of the tibia and fibula of his right leg; that began the long journey of recovery that would see him out for about 8 months and see him go out on loan to Nottingham Forest and his old club Cardiff City.

It was during his recovery that Arsene Wenger again showed unwavering belief in Aaron by extending his tenure, signing him to a new long term contract with the club.

Before his ascent to the very top last season Aaron had a flip flop and sometimes torrid time regarding his performances on the pitch. He came into a lot of heavy and unfair criticism from fans, which -in my opinion- was to an extent down to difficulty created by the solid and great season Jack Wilshere was having in the team. Aaron looked a shadow of himself the times he did get his chance to play. His problem wasn’t physical anymore, it was -in my humble opinion- more of a psychological handbrake and he can be forgiven after the trauma he went through. That was the ugly duckling phase for him for surely from 2012/2013 season he was maturing and growing into his own till in 2013/2014 season he blossomed into a swan (yes I know a male swan is called a cob).

The buildup to Aaron having a fantastic 2013/2014 started slowly but steadily from the 2012/2013 season where he made a total 21 starts and scored only once in the league. Looking at this stat one may think that he really didn’t do that much and so many people were disillusioned by his performances especially as Wenger was still picking him game after game. During his campaign he suffer from lapses in concentration in games but the critiques were over the top. People failed to notice that Aaron passes the ball extremely well (87%), makes key tackles, has great interception rates, creates  goal scoring opportunities therefore has qualities of a great box to box player. For me personally what I found and still find refreshing about Aaron is his willingness to take shots on goal as sometimes Arsenal are a bit obsessed with creating the perfect walk in goal.

As part of building the club with “British Core” Aaron together with Carl Jenkinson, Jack Wilshere, Kieran Gibbs and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain all signed new long term contracts in December 2012.  I think that the new contract further galvanized Rambo and gave him the confidence boost he badly needed. The rest of his season became success and he was like a new player.

Before the start of the 2013/2014 season very few people gave Arsenal a chance as usual the critiques believed our campaign was in ruins before it began with the botched attempt to sign Luiz Suarez from Liverpool and the lack of any top class signing at the time. Ramsey was to re-write the script and provide a championship assault performance for the Gunners.

After a promising pre-season he just flexed his muscles and kept moving through the gears without looking back. The deadline day signing of Mesut Ozil from Real Madrid brought a wave of excitement and optimism that had been lacking for a while, but it was Rambo that would take the spotlight and produce one of his finest performances in an Arsenal shirt.

August to December 2013 saw Aaron provide performances for the highlight reel he became the heartbeat and most influential player for the Gunners providing assists, breaking up play and scoring some memorable goals. He was the darling of the moment everything he did was magic, he was proving the doubters wrong and Gooners all around the globe even the most pessimistic were falling in love all over again with Arsenal’s new talisman.

 Once Rambo started scoring he didn’t know how to stop by November he had amassed 13 goals in all competitions overhauling his career 11 goal tally in his previous 4 seasons at the club and it was not even January.

It wasn’t just his goal scoring record that was impressive Aaron was the consummate team player providing assists for his team mates and generally elevating the spirits within the team. His positioning on the field has been one of the key areas that has assisted in his success. This saw him win the Arsenal Player of the month 4 consecutive times and the Barclays player of the month in September. He was without a doubt the best midfielder in the league and he is one of the top young midfielders in Europe. “We bought Ramsey for £5 million and I wouldn’t sell him for £50 million” said Arsene after another fine performance against Cardiff City. 

The injury Gods would once again deal a blow to Aaron’s flying form; he would sustain a thigh injury against West Ham that would see him out for over three months. His absence would see the Gunners run take a nose dive that will see the team go from top of the pile to battling for the 4^th Champions League place with Everton.

 During the 2013/2014 campaign he scored some incredible goals the 25 yard belter against Liverpool, the goals against Norwich, Dortmund, and Stoke but surely the crowning glory has to be the goal in the FA Cup final.

He ensured the team closed out the season with a bang and returned that championship winning feeling that a lot of us fans have forgotten. I missed the opening stages of the FA Cup final and my phone was dead, as soon as I got home and turned on the TV I couldn’t believe we were 2-0 down. I kept praying please don’t bottle this Arsenal, my United supporting brother said “you need some Aaron magic” little did he know how prophetic his words would be. He was not having his best match but he was everywhere on the pitch tackling, passing and yes shooting. He and the team would dig in and claw their way out to emerge victorious in the Wembley sunshine and end the 9 year trophy drought.

Aaron has come a long way from the teenage prodigy to delivering on the promise of being one of the best young midfielders in Europe. He has established himself as a dominant player in the Arsenal team with aggressive offensiveness and consistent defensive qualities. He was written off time and time again by critics and fans but like a phoenix he has risen again even more determined and has proved he can hold his own among the elites of football, not too bad for a boy from a rugby town.

This is a post Arsenal Andrew made earlier today. I believe it deserves its own blog. Nice to see you Andrew,absence makes the heart…………….and all that .

I suspect it may take a few years for the enormity of all Arsene Wenger’s achievements to be fully digested, absorbed, understood and appreciated. Much as the great artists often only earned full recognition once they had stopped working, so too may Arsene only finally get the universal acknowledgement that most here feel he richly deserves.

Yesterday’s signing, aside from strengthening the side, is possibly more significant in its value as a statement of intent. Building on 2013′s Ozil signature, the timing, rhyming as it does with the PUMA deal and kit launch, the sense of all our ducks finally being in a row is now overwhelming.

Not only do we have the firepower pitchside, but the ability to add to our arsenal, season in, season out, thanks to the outstanding commercial work Kroenke has allowed to take place behind the scenes and so triumphantly executed by Gazidis and co.

Clearly Arsene will rightly go down as the architect of Arsenal in the 21st Century but the role of Kroenke and the success of Gazidis should never be forgotten. The euphoria most Gooners are feeling in the summer of 2014 is in no small measure thanks to all three, in spite of the vicious lies posted against their name by those who chose not to see the wood for the trees.

A small number of us called this exactly right – not over recent months but throughout several years. Years when we were attacked, belittled and derided.

We are probably more entitled than most to savour the coming success.

We’ll certainly know how to appreciate it.

 Today we have the first in a series of blogs on the rise and rise of Aaron Ramsey, which with a bit of luck will see some new bloggers popping their cherries.

I’m not ashamed to say that I wasn’t always Ramsey’s biggest fan. For a long time I quite simply though he was bad. In fact I was positive that he wasn’t good enough. When we discussed the deadwood that needed unloading, I lumped Ramsey in with Park, Djourou, and dare I say it, the great Lord Bendtner. He was a waste of space in my eyes; someone who would hold onto the ball too long in midfield and couldn’t win it back when he lost it. Don’t even get me started on when he played on the wing. There weren’t and still aren’t many footballers that really get my blood boiling. If Arsene bought them they must have something about them. I supported Arshavin for longer than most and was disappointed when both Eduardo and Vela were sold. All of them had shown flashes of brilliance, but dulled for some reason or another; injury, failure to adapt to the Premier League etc. To this day I still believe Arshavin just got too old and lost his fitness. However, something about Aaron just didn’t click with me. I cut him some slack, as I think we all did, after the terrible challenge from the Orc King that could have cleaved Castle Grayskull itself in two. However, by the 2011/2012 season I was frustrated with his lack of progression and felt he would never achieve the heights we had projected for him.

The paragraph you’ve just read was my opinion for about a year. My friends will never let me forget it.

One very important factor in the rise of Rambo is Arsene Wenger. He had potential when signing from Cardiff sure, but potential doesn’t always make a great player. Jay Emmanuel Thomas had potential too. I always saw Jack Wilshere as more talented, and more likely to make it. But Arsene always knew. Before paying 5 million pounds (for a 17 year old from Cardiff that’s nothing to sneeze at) Wenger reportedly flew him out to Switzerland to discuss his future. The boss was commentating at Euro 2008 at the time. Wenger spent over a month watching the best players in Europe and flew Aaron Ramsey out to convince him to join Arsenal. That shows you the belief Wenger had in him right from the beginning. While Ramsey was recovering from injury in 2010, a career threatening double leg break, Wenger signed him to a new long term contract. When others would have abandoned him, Wenger reassured him that he had a future at the club. The following season Jack would have one of his best performances for the club, in the 2-1 win over Barcelona at the Emirates. Aaron who? But Arsene always knew.

We’ve all heard that quote from Wenger: “Once Aaron Ramsey starts scoring he won’t stop”.

And he didn’t.  Right up to the final moment of our last and most important game of the season, Aaron Ramsey didn’t stop scoring. But Ramsey’s rise (I’m enjoying the alliteration here) didn’t start in 2013/2014 season. That was just when he finally reached the top of the mountain. That F.A. Cup final goal sends Aaron Ramsey down in Arsenal history. Aaron Ramsey; Drought-Breaker. But it didn’t start there. In December 2012, Ramsey signed a new contract as part of our so called ‘British core’ along with Jenkinson, the Ox, Wilshere and Gibbs. Another show of faith from the boss. He never looked back. At this point I was still unsure of Ramsey’s future at Arsenal. In my eyes he still held the ball for too long, and tried clever tricks in areas of the pitch where he really shouldn’t have. But I began to see a change. Ramsey became very solid defensively. He didn’t score a mountain of goals in 2012/2013 in fact we only saw 1 premier league goal. What we did see however, was the start of the great Aaron Ramsey Engine. He started 17 of our last 20 matches, having previously started only 12 all season. From January onwards, he was indispensable, next to Arteta in midfield, becoming a true box to box player, running the ball between our defence and attack. This was when Ramsey finally set upon his climb with vigour. More and more I found myself admitting Ramsey had played well, had had a good game, had been man of the match. His rise was gathering pace.

Just before the start of last season we got a glimpse of what Ramsey would do. After a great pre-season, Ramsey topped it off with a lovely run from deep to score against Man City, as well as assisting a great goal from Theo (Oh what could have been). He also scored 3 times against Fenerbahce across two legs. It was something we would get used to. He scored against Fulham, Sunderland, Stoke (delightfully), Swansea and Norwich; 5 goals in the first 7 premier league games. By this point in the season we had already run out of superlatives for him. He didn’t have a part in Arsenal’s goal-of-the-season wonder goal against Norwich, so instead took it upon himself to dribble past the entire Norwich defence and score (leaving half of them on the floor behind him). It was Messi-esque. And yes I just made up that word because there are no words to describe how good Ramsey had become. Clearly my opinion has now completely changed. That’s not me back tracking or denying what I had previously believed. Quite simply I couldn’t be stubborn and ignore what was right in front of me. Despite the signing of Mesut Ozil, Ramsey had become Arsenal’s best player, our talisman, our driving force. I’ve not seen a player play like this in midfield for Arsenal for a long time. Fabregas was great he really was, but Ramsey had resurrected the spirit of Patrick Vieira to play at Arsenal’s heart.

What was Ramsey’s best moment of the 2013/2014 season? The goals against Norwich, Liverpool and Dortmund all stand out in my memory, but surely the F.A. Cup final goal takes the crown. His goals had dried up a little in the final moments of the season but when we were desperate, when we really needed someone to pull us out of a hole, Ramsey was there. I remember sitting right at the top of Wembley stadium and feeling despair when we were 2 nil down. I had been at Birmingham too. Surely this couldn’t happen again. Slowly but surely we clawed our way back. Ramsey didn’t have his best game, far from it, but in typical Ramsey fashion he never gave up. I remember a number of shots from outside the box, going high, going wide but inching closer every time, and I vividly remember turning to my dad saying, “I don’t care if he misses, they should keep giving him the ball. Let him shoot”. It was a massive change from my attitude towards Ramsey 18 months previously, where I would groan whenever he touched the ball.

Shoot he did. And score he did. Aaron Ramsey, after his best ever season, after being the best midfielder in England for 12 months, scored the winning goal to win the F.A. Cup for Arsenal. Drought-Breaker. Ramsey has climbed an Everest of injury, abuse and negativity, lots from his own fans. But he never gave up, and now he’s standing at the highest peak with an F.A. Cup winner’s medal and fistful of names he’s proved wrong, including a certain Dutch ex-captain who wanted him sold. He proved me wrong too. But he wouldn’t gloat because he’s not like that.

Aaron Ramsey has made a humble football fan of me. After his last 18 months I never feel I can write any player off no matter how bad they are. People have consistently written off Jenkinson, but I did the same with Ramsey. People wrote off Giroud, but I did the same with Ramsey. Hell I even don’t feel I can write off Tom Cleverly. Don’t get me wrong, I really think he’s shit. But once upon a time I said this guy wasn’t good enough for Arsenal Football Club and I had to eat my words. His name is Aaron Ramsey; Drought-Breaker.

By Tom Papaloizou @TomPapaloizou

On 20^th December 2013 Luis Suarez signed a new contract with Liverpool that not only raised his wages but purported to keep him on Merseyside until 2018. Twitter was awash with back-slapping Liverpudlians, proudly proclaiming that Christmas had come early, and taking every opportunity to taunt The Arsenal, who had infamously bid for Suarez back in August. It wasn’t just Koppites gleefully asking us what we planned smoking over the festive period, it was also cue for the start of a full-blown media love in about the careful husbandry of Liverpool, of the strength of John Henry, of the ambition of Rodgers and the sublimity of Suarez’s play. Suarez’s breath-taking partnership with Sturridge and Sterling had not only seen Liverpool climb towards the top of the table, but had also seen the UK Media forget all about the sanctimonious attitudes they’d adopted back in March when once again Suarez was persona non grata, not this time for racial abuse, but for baring his teeth at Ivanovic. It was a remarkable Volta-face by the press. Not swayed by any Christmas spirit, Scrooge-like I couldn’t help posting this on Twitter that day.

Clever from Suarez and LFC. He needed a buy-out clause, they couldn’t risk selling below market value. The vultures will circle now.

What I didn’t know then of course was that Suarez’s brilliance would take Liverpool to the very brink of Premier League success, for I thought it likely that Liverpool would probably finish 5^th or 6^th in the table. The memory of our comfortable 2-0 win over them was still fresh in the mind, and their defensive frailties looked enough to keep them out of Champions League contention. What did rankle though was the constant reminder that we had come so close to signing him (we would have been out of sight by New Year’s Day if we had) but also the very real suspicion that had we done so it would have caused a storm of opprobrium that The Arsenal would perhaps never recovered from. For that alone it is worth replaying the events of last summer one last time.

At some stage The Arsenal got wind of the fact that Suarez had a release clause in his contract, and that a bid of £40 million would be enough to secure his services. It seemed likely that those close to the player had whispered the information into a few ears, and it was Arsene Wenger who decided to act on it. This was a fine footballing decision, but a bold move nonetheless. Suarez had been in trouble before and he was in trouble now. He was not yet half-way through a ten match ban, but more importantly his past misdemeanors were regularly paraded by English journalists: at the time Suarez was not a popular figure at all, and I suspect that had he come to The Arsenal he would have remained unpopular, and that the club would have been slated for encouraging racism, for turning a blind eye to any kind of sporting morality, and for having a manager whose very Frenchness guaranteed that he’d never understand the concept of fair play.  Never a universally liked club in the press, I suspect that had Suarez fired The Arsenal to Premier League success we would have become the Millwall of the 21^st Century: nobody likes us and we don’t care. Despite all of this, Wenger knew that Suarez was a player of a lifetime, one of the elite top four (Messi, Ronaldo and Bale are the others) currently playing with the ability to single-handedly change the course of a game – and to do so on a regular basis.

No stranger to unusual transfer fees, having paid the unusual sum in 1975 of £333,333 and 34 pence to Newcastle United for Malcolm Macdonald (the 34 pennies to ensure that the fee was exactly over a third of a million pounds), Arsenal managed to enrage all Liverpool supporters with the cheeky extra pound that would trigger the transfer clause.

Many have suggested that it was that pound that caused John Henry to dig his heels in, but I suspect it more likely that he knew that £40 million was at the very least 30 million less than Suarez was worth, and that sum of money was indeed worth playing hard ball over. Whatever the truth, the saga rumbled on for weeks, before Arsenal finally admitted defeat and realized that they would have to spend one more season without a top, top predatory goal scorer.

It was a shame, but there it was. But what few could have predicted was that it was the fact (and the way) that the Arsenal bid for him that caused the Suarez revisionism among the UK media, and it was this that eventually stuck in the throat. He soon became a reformed character in their eyes, and this was all down to Brendan Rodgers and Stevie Gerrard.

Even more strangely Liverpool were cast in the role of Cinderella club, fighting bravely against impossible odds, and their astonishing run of form after Christmas and through the early Spring became a thing of national celebration. And somehow, every goal that Suarez scored, every point that he helped secure gave someone, somewhere an opportunity to sneer at The Arsenal.

I for one couldn’t stand it: couldn’t stand the way he put us to the sword in that 5-1 trouncing, couldn’t stand it that when Chelsea did much the same thing to us it was somehow the spirit of Suarez that was invoked, couldn’t bear it that all I could hear was Suarez, Suarez, Suarez. The very name mocked all I did, for every time it was uttered by press or pundit it allowed them simultaneously to sneer at Arsene.  And the worst thing of all was that I could see how brilliant he was. Quite simply he is one of the best I have ever seen, a genius footballer who makes the impossible happen on a regular basis, and it galled me beyond belief that I couldn’t enjoy his skill, not because I objected to him as a person but because he wasn’t an Arsenal player and that everything he did diminished us. I had much the same problem with Gareth Bale, but despite his appalling team, the media adulation didn’t bother me nearly as much, and so I found it easier to cope with his successes. I suppose it was because he wasn’t playing for a direct rival really.

Shortly before the England-Uruguay match I said to a friend that I knew Suarez would score the goal that would beat us but that I hoped he did it in such an underhand way it would turn the media against him again (I felt that this would harm Liverpool somehow, such is my inability to see anything except through my Arsenal lens). Well, it didn’t work out quite like that, but in a way I got my wish.

It now seems as if he is off to Spain, just as I suspected he would be back in December. And despite the huge fee that Liverpool will receive from his sale they will be weaker without him, just as Spurs were weaker without Bale. Players like that cannot be replaced: they are that good, they make all the difference, and I hate it when other sides in the Premier League have them and we don’t, if only because it makes me at times resent my own players for not being in that stratospheric class.

So now I can look forward to the coming season knowing that I won’t have to have endure such a sickening medial love-in about a player I had once so shamefully coveted, but that I can also enjoy watching him play again on a regular basis, or at least until we once again face Barcelona in the Champions League.

Today’s  post was by @foreverheady

A post from @foreverheady   

If a week’s a long time in politics then ninety minutes is certainly plenty enough time for football fans to realise that most players are only human after all. I was listening to Darren Gough talking about Lionel Messi on the radio yesterday, and he was very much of the opinion that he hadn’t had the greatest of World Cup tournaments thus far and that his four Man of the Match awards were based more on reputation than actual achievement. In fact, Argentina’s latest game, where they seemed to take forever to dispatch Switzerland, showed another of the game’s greats, the exotically named Angel di Maria to be not so special after all. And yet, as the clock ticked inexorably towards another high stakes penalty shoot-out it was Messi and di Maria who stepped up to win the game. Gliding past two players in trademark style Lionel drew the final defender on to him before slipping the ball to Maria who passed the ball into the net with all the nonchalance of a training ground move, rather than the nerve-jangling coup de grace that would secure a quarter-final spot and, indeed, the promise of far more than that. It was a sublime moment of footballing genius, and future views of highlights and vine clips will ensure that it lives long in the collective footballing consciousness. In short, those few seconds wiped out the ordinariness of the previous two hours, and proved that when it really mattered Messi was the man. If you had only seen the goal you would have thought Dazzler mad.

And yet, despite the almost universal agreement that this has been the greatest and most exciting World Cup ever (at least since the last one) a lot of players have seemingly failed to shine on the greatest stage of all. While reputations may not be completely in tatters, it does seem that many of those who were so eagerly anticipated have struggled to be at their very best, and various reasons have been put forward to explain this. The impossible heat, the makeshift nature of the national teams, the refereeing, the tactical acumen of the opposition managers, the desire that the footballing ‘minnows’ show when pulling on their national strip have been among some of the more popular pieces of punditry, and as with all theories that masquerade as sensible each contain enough truth to be plausible. But I wonder if it isn’t something far more obvious than all of this and that Ronaldo’s feet of clay are just another symptom of the truth so wearily acknowledged each Saturday afternoon by the long suffering denizens of the football League’s terraces. And that truth is, and whisper this quietly or the sponsors will take offence, that football is actually quite a boring game, and that most players, for most of the time, struggle to do anything out of the ordinary; it is sadly true that most sides find it well-nigh impossible to breach a well-organised defence. When explaining goalless performances, managers euphemistically refer to a lack of quality in the final third, when what they actually mean is “none of my players were capable of doing anything unexpected, and my offensive tactics were rendered impotent by my counterpart’s defensive strategy. “ If you watch some games you quite soon begin to wonder if either side will ever be good enough to actually score a goal, so laborious are their efforts. The score-lines give it away, of course: 0-0, 1-0, 1-1, , 2-0, 2-1 are by far the most common, and any tally more than that is a rarity unless the teams are hopelessly mismatched or defensively incontinent.

I am guessing here, but I suspect that the vast majority of football watchers don’t often watch whole games, making do instead with recorded highlights on Match of the Day or various Youtube compilations. When much of the tedious dross is edited out, football comes alive with end to end stuff, goalmouth action a plenty, tantalising and sumptuous moments of artistry and wonder goals repeated endlessly and from all angles. They all look good on the telly, unless of course it is the turn of some hapless defender to have his limitations cruelly exposed by the forensic unpleasantness of a bitter analyst blessed with hindsight, technology and supported by full blown media bias. There will be few regular and actual game-going supporters who haven’t experienced the frustration of seeing their own attackers huff and puff impotently for ninety minutes that afternoon, only to catch Match of the Day later that evening and see a United or City star pirouette on a sixpence before dispatching it venomously into the top corner. And if you have had a couple by then and your reason and your judgment are momentarily suspended, it’s hard not to at least imagine what it would be like to have him leading the line for you next week.  Infidelity, you see, is born out of over-exposure to the commonplace and a momentary glimpse of the exotic.

The problem with this World Cup is that the exotic has become commonplace and the likes of Darren Gough, not to mention many teenage boys, are having to watch whole games in their essentially dull entirety, perhaps for the very first time. Watching Messi being shackled by Johan Djouru for two hours is a little like (and I’m guessing here, Your Honour) watching Linda Lovelace condemned to a perpetual diet of lukewarm and unseasoned Shepherds’ Pie. It is, at best, a disappointment. And I wonder too if this isn’t the problem with people’s perception of Mesut Ozil . When he signed for The Arsenal I wonder how many had watched him play that often, or whether they just remembered flashes of brilliance from Bloemfontein and countless effortless assists in various “Ronaldo’s Greatest Goals” compilations. His first few Arsenal matches were like that too: a beyond brilliant assist for Giroud, a wonder strike against Napoli, a brace to see off Norwich. This was pornography made real and all that golden autumn we were drowning, stingless, in honey- bliss was it indeed  in that dawn to be an Arsenal fan. It didn’t last, of course – or rather, it didn’t last quite like that. The everydayness of things all too soon kicked in, and shamefully the fans got used to his brilliance and no longer noticed when he had done something quite exceptional. Unless every touch turned to gold immediately, he was no longer accorded special status and all too soon he became merely human and nothing like his Youtube alter ego: just another ordinary player, in fact.

Except Mesut Ozil is not just another player, just as Lionel Messi is not having an ordinary tournament. Games are not twenty minutes long (football has yet to go down cricket’s route and pander to today’s short attention spans, although I suspect it is only a matter of time before that happens) and the proof of a player is his contribution over the whole game. It is no surprise that Messi and Ozil made their recent match winning moves deep into injury time, just as it was no coincidence that The Arsenal’s player of the season, Aaron Ramsey, scored the winning goal in the Cup Final long after most had cried enough. Cream rises to the top, they say, and so too do great Sportsmen, and if they think it is worth playing until the final whistle is blown then perhaps the pundits might also try concentrating for long enough to see what is really going on. Not every move they make will come off, not every shot will score, and for much of the time we should expect them to be shackled – after all, it would be almost match-fixingly strange if tactics were not drawn up to nullify the most dangerous players – but rest assured, class will out and they will find a way, and that is why they are, as Arsene would say, top, top quality, and why  I am looking forward to seeing them play again this weekend.

Sports are ubiquitous in the American South. It’s on TV everywhere, all the time. And that’s particularly true in Birmingham, Alabama. We consistently rank at or near the top of ESPN’s ratings – and that’s for almost all sports, not just college football. It’s tough out there if you don’t like sports. You’re going to get left out of a lot of parties. So, I’ve learned over the years to gather just enough knowledge to not be bored silly whenever a sporting event is on the TV. (Except for NASCAR. I refuse to watch NASCAR. It’s just stupid. Sue me.) I was never good at actually playing sports. (Ok, to be fair, I was on the tennis team in high school. But they were desperate.) But I could always feign interest. And then, in my old age, I discovered soccer (Sorry, but I’m American. That’s what we call it.).

Soccer, unsurprisingly, is not on the list of most watched sports here in Alabama. You can expect people to make fun of you if you admit to watching it. And you can expect people to make serious fun of you if you admit to being hooked on an English soccer team, getting up at all manner of ridiculous hours on weekend mornings to watch them play. Your co-workers will buy you gag gifts related to said team for your birthday, to include a squad photo of your favourite player (which you will proceed to put up in your office, because, hey, you’re a good sport). You will become an oddity to your friends. Every time they see you, they will say, “So. How’s Arsenal doing these days?” And you will regale them with the exploits from the most recent match, and they will smile and nod, indulging you in your odd hobby. But sometimes, they actually do become interested. After all, enthusiasm can be infectious.

One of the things I’ve loved the most about becoming a ‘rabid’ soccer fan, is bringing people along with me for the ride. It started at my house, when my husband finally stopped making fun of me and started watching with me. It was at first a case of “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em”, but he’s now as big a fan of Arsenal as me. (Well, almost. I still think I win that contest.) I also have a co-worker who actively follows Arsenal now. Another who follows Chelsea. (I tried, really I did. I consider it my biggest failure to date.)  And now, when people stop me in the hallway to ask about the weekend’s games, they often start with “I saw part of the Arsenal game on TV on Saturday.”  Baby steps, people.

All this leads up to my experience with the World Cup this summer. I’m sitting here on Saturday afternoon, surrounded by a house that needs cleaning, laundry that needs doing, dishes that need washing. And I’m planted in front of the TV, watching the World Cup, as I have done almost every day for the last two weeks. If you asked my husband, he would tell you that it doesn’t take much to distract me from housework…Martha Stewart I am not. But almost everything in my life (except work, darn it) has taken a back seat to soccer in the last two weeks. I’ve been to a bar to watch an England game with 200 other people, to a barbecue restaurant to watch a US game with some friends from church, and, on Thursday to a long lunch with 11 co-workers to watch the US play Germany. Now, if I’m honest, I was more interested in Mesut and Lukas and Per than I was in Dempsey and Bradley and Zusi. But it was fun. Everybody was talking about it. Even my daughter watched it. And I know that it has as its roots the patriotic fervour that I normally despise (USA! USA!…please stop…). But I hope you’ll forgive me if I’m just a little excited at the prospect of even a percentage of these folks getting hooked on the game that I’ve come to love so much.  Maybe I won’t get funny looks the next time I ask a bartender to turn the TV over to an Arsenal Champions League match on a Wednesday afternoon.  Hell, maybe when I walk in, it’ll already be on.

Sorry, Skipper, but Tuesday I’m gonna be all “USA! USA!” when we play Belgium. I hope you’ll forgive me

This post is by alabamagooner ( @kmwood02 )