As he ran I was aware of becoming involved in his running and being a part of it, until he turned with heavy pirouette and drew the applause of the crowd. In adoration of the King of Kings. I was drawn in. Those bandy legs, that confident chest, those piercing eyes. I was drawn in. Control, look up, release; track, tackle, survive. The great combatant, the general, the leader; magister. Beating heart, ticking clock, lion of Highbury. An elderly man with trembling hands said he was the bravest he ever saw. A cold winter’s day; the eyes of Keane, the shins of Keane. Yellow and red, red and yellow. Grass and mud and sweat and tears and blood and scars. Olbas. Foot on ball, sock at ankle he stands. He stands and surveys his kingdom. Magister.
“The principle mark of genius is not perfection but originality, the opening of new frontiers.” (Arthur Koestler)
The 1930s, in myriad frightful ways, were years of relentless discord, tumult and suffering. With the world reeling from the Wall Street Crash of 1929, fascism took European politics in its icy clasp and so began the best part of fifteen years’ worth of conflict and outright decimation. For football, however, the thirties was a decade of positive change and rapid methodological development. No better were these advances demonstrated than by Herbert Chapman and his famous Arsenal side of the period. Read the rest of this entry »
To look at Samir Nasri you would not necessarily think of him as an athlete, a footballer capable of quite breathtaking feats of technical intricacy. Scrawny, fragile and buck-toothed, Arsenal’s French midfield playmaker is an unlikely maestro, but a maestro all the same. Read the rest of this entry »
As an impressionable teenager exploring the wonders of the football world, Fredrik Ljungberg came into my life at just the right time. Dennis Bergkamp may have been the one that piqued my interest in the sport in 1998, sensationally knocking Argentina out of the World Cup and leading me to Arsenal in the process. But it wasn’t until Ljungberg came along that I fell in love with the game of football. Read the rest of this entry »
Galloping through on goal, Andrei Arshavin receives the ball from Theo Walcott and calmly smashes the ball past the powerless Pepe Reina. He turns, flashing four digits at the Arsenal faithful, his face coloured by a goofy bewilderment. FOUR league goals at Anfield – the first player to achieve such a feat for 63 years – and, to top it all, he had deeply furrowed the title-chasing brows of Liverpool.
The scurrying winger had come to the surface only four times in the match and scored every time. That was Arshavin – aloof, singular, and brooding but always carrying the threat of genius. That eight-goal rollercoaster sealed my adoration for the Russian maestro.
Just as Arshavin was a latecomer to the upper echelons of football, it wasn’t until the European Championships in 2008 that he really caught my attention. He was the central figure in an electric Russian side – always scheming, always dynamic and always using his low centre of gravity to elegantly burst past all and sundry. It was no more evident than in the quarter-final against the Netherlands, who were renowned by many as tournament favourites. A glorious 3-1 victory in extra-time ensured that Oranje blood was left twisted.
Spain exploited Russia’s physical exertions in the semis but Arshavin had made his mark. He was deservedly named in the team of the tournament. Where had this 27 year-old been all our lives?
The inevitable transfer speculation came and I remember willing him to avoid Barcelona’s advances and come to the Premier League. There was something in Arshavin that reignited in me that giddy excitement you used to have when foreign exports were still a little foreign to English football. He would be in the bracket of Bergkamp and Zola. He possessed that unique ability to do something that left you gazing and open-mouthed.
I had made peace with the fact that there was no chance of him joining Mike Ashley’s pint-guzzling, wheezing revolution at my team, football@NewcastleUnited.com. Arsenal and their artistic brushstrokes would be the next best thing.
He finally arrived in London just before the end of 2009’s January transfer window and became the centrepiece of the fax machine combusting deadline day hissy fit. Inclement weather almost had him on the plane back to St Petersburg. Thankfully the transfer was squeezed through. This special player would have the stage his compelling take on football demanded.
Arshavin’s singularity also stretches beyond the confines of the football pitch. The sterilised world of the professional footballer and the ‘then I went home and had a bottle of water’ school of platitudes is not for him. He will criticise his team if he thinks it is necessary.
He has even written three books, including “555 Questions and Answers on Women, Money, Politics and Football”. The Q & A sessions on his official website are equally unmissable. He gamely tackles questions on God, Rasputin, riding horses bareback and “Jehan from India’s” request for a personal rendezvous in London. He explains his love of whisky, bears and the effect of water’s chemical composition on his hair style.
The fondness for whisky is fitting because Arshavin is in the image of the classic 1960’s chauvinist. When his wife publicly complained about life in London last year, he explained without a hint of irony that “I’ve prohibited her from complaining about life in England”. Who else could make that sound hilarious? He also has a penchant for talking in the third person so it’s only fair to leave the final word to him: “Andrei Arshavin is one of a kind”.
The Equaliser 