Arsenal, Dortmund, Holland: remarks on relatability in a football team

I have a problem.

I know what a successful club looks like. The trophies, the glory, the team full of killers capable of blowing you 7-0 or crushing the tightest three points. I saw him, and he refuses to move me. Tyrannical giant clubs such as your Man City and Bayern impress me clinically. I intellectually understand that what they are doing is incredible, bordering on superhuman, but there is nothing that inspires real emotion in me.

My soul carries the burden of this attraction to a specific type of club. Their perception is fractured, their promise is endless but their production is frustrating. While there's so much to love, their accomplishments never fit the accepted definition of success. These are clubs defined by the word "almost".

Being an Arsenal fan can feel like you're going through some sort of conditioning experience. How far can we build and destroy this man's mind before his perception of football is completely shattered? It took 12 years to be on this earth and about 5 years to realize what football really was. I sat in front of the 2010 World Cup a pre-teen already littered with gray hair painted all over me by Denilson and Alex Song, and fell in love with my first non-Arsenal team - the Dutch finalists.

I think my Arsenal fandom predisposed me to this case. Someone my age who didn't have the long term memory of a potato could probably remember the glory years when we actually won things but alas I was preoccupied with an attempt to learn the names of all the dinosaurs. My passion for football intensified in the late 2000s, which meant that my footballing upbringing was shaped by Wenger's little tiki-taka masterpieces.

I found them mesmerizing, and still do. It was an era of Premier League football that was tactically tough, compared to the petty obsessions of today's game.In this landscape, Arsenal's control and grace felt both light years away and fundamental for the DNA of the game. My love for them only grew in hindsight. Me, a man, using everyone's frustration...