Magical Night in Paris Will Be One of A Kind....

By M. B. Zaidi

Good morning to you all, as today is the day we have all been waiting for. The 17th of May 2006, the champions league final that we may never ever see again in our lifetime. NOW DON’T GET ME WRONG…Im not saying we wont get into the final again, more that the Arsenal vs Barcelona match in the champions league final is something quite special. It is a reward for two teams that play attacking football and actually entertain neutral supporters. This MUST be one of the most eagerly anticipated finals for a long time…

I don’t want to bore you with a long preview ranting on about the obvious stuff like Barcelona being the favourites, our key men, their key men etc etc…Because the truth is we already know that all that stuff goes out the window in cup finals, as West Ham and Liverpool showed on the weekend, ANYTHING can happen in football and tonight wont be any different. Most finals are so hyped up and are usually a major disappointment, examples are most FA Cup finals in recent years (Yes Arsenal vs Southampton wasn’t exactly a classic!). BUT tonight is a different matter, I really do expect tonight’s game to live up to its high expectations and I really do believe we have a HUGE chance of lifting that trophy in Theirry’s home town tonight.

Big games need big players, and the players don’t get much bigger than this, the unquestionably two best footballers on the planet playing in the same match in the champions league final…throw in a Deco and Eto, a little bit of Fabregas, Reyes and Hleb….then you can already see this is a game of top quality players and hopefully top quality football. Bergkamp has travelled already and if there is any occasion that deserves some Bergkamp magic, it is this…but he wont start and I don’t expect him to come on unless we are either winning by a huge margin, or we are in desperate need of some creativity and losing hope…A few weeks ago apparently Wenger said that Walcott would be named on the bench, that was of course before his call up to the England squad for the World cup, so he isn’t in the squad for tonight’s game because he is in a training camp with the England squad who have there first training session together.

I got an email asking me what we should expect for tonight’s game and to overview our route to Paris, and even though I don’t want to go too much into it, here are my final thoughts on our biggest game EVER…and the competition as a whole before I have to go and actually do some work!.....

This season had been a disappointing one to say the least if we hadn’t made it this far in the champions league, an unnecessary “transitional” season that wasn’t needed and could have been avoided.

From the beginning of the season NOBODY could have predicted this would be the year we got to the final, with the squad we had, with the resources we had, the injuries that hit our team in key areas. The defence was completely ripped apart by injuries to our first team and the number of players that stood up to be counted in those desperate times shows the amazing contributions that our whole squad made to getting us this far. Youngsters that most supporters wouldn’t have heard of unless they played championship manager were doing the business for us even in a few games. Kerrea Gilbert was a young right back who kept the momentum going for us when we had Toure, Eboue and Lauren out, he then got an injury but he still made a contribution, even if it wasn’t in the champions league.

We passed our preliminary group stages with flying colours without conceding hardly any goals at all, and since then haven’t looked back while keeping solid against some of the biggest players in world football. Real Madrid and Juventus were two games that in terms of “big name players”, outshone us by far, with the exception of Henry of course…However, our back five consisting of Lehmann, Eboue, Toure, Senderos and Flamini, didn’t concede even one goal against the likes of Ronaldo, Zidane, Beckham, Robinho, Ibrahimovich, Trezeguet, Nedved etc etc. That is quite amazing in itself and shows the potential of our players for the future, but more importantly shows us that we have the stable foundation needed for any building that makes up a football team. The five in midfield in both of the first legs against Juve and Real, were outstanding and showed us exactly how the 4-5-1 formation can work effectively.

My personal opinion is that even though the back five did a fantastic job of not conceding all this time, it is as important to point out that a lot of the work was done by those five in midfield that didn’t even allow the other team to get to our defence by breaking it up in midfield and retaining possession. Gilberto had the best game I have seen him play against Villarreal where he overshadowed his South American “friend”, Juan Roman Riquelme. Cesc, Hleb, Freddie, Reyes and Pires were the other players that have played in the midfield, and even thought all of them are actually more attacking players than defensive, they still managed to keep their discipline when defending. On so many occasions I saw Hleb winning the ball and intercepting it was quite amazing to see and even more so the phenomenal tackle that Pires made on Viera to start of the move where Fabregas scored.

Liverpool and Porto are the other two teams that were not exactly favourites to win the champions league in recent years but did, however there victories were far less convicing than ours. Against Juve and Real in the first legs, we outplayed them and should have scored more in both games. Fabregas was fantastic in both, but really stood up against Juve in the first leg where he completely ran midfield with his incisive passing and movement, then grabbing a goal and setting up another. Cant even play for Barcelona B? HA….HA…..stupid Catalans!

Villarreal to be honest wasn’t as much of a walkover as some expected, they were a much tougher team to play than Juve and Real, and it was only because of Jens that we made it through to the final in the last minute of the worst game I have ever seen as an Arsenal supporter, ok perhaps not the worst, but we weren’t in the game at all and it was a completely one sided match, in a match that we were all so hyped up about, anyway though Jens saved the penalty WOO HOO….lets move on to the final!....

The team I expect to play will probably be this (NOT who I think SHOULD play):

Lehmann, Eboue, Toure, Campbell, Cole, Hleb, Cescy, Gilberto, Ljungberg, Reyes, Henry.

That is who I think will get it, but I have a sneaky feeling Senderos MIGHT get the nod even though reports are that Campbell will start. Definitely think Cole will start because even though Flamini does deserve it, its just that Cole has played a few games and Flamini has been away with an injury, so Cole has the momentum of the few games under his belt. The same goes to Campbell, even though I think Senderos would be the better choice because he organises the defence so well and has been a rock in our lead up to this game. HOWEVER, on his day, Campbell can shut out most attackers but he hasn’t been up to that standard for a bit of time, BUT I think that if he does start he will do a solid job, he seems like he has learned from his mistakes and now that he has had a few games he should be getting up there with the fitness. Either way I just hope they do the business for us!

In the mirror, it says Pires will play for Reyes, I hope that isn’t the case because Reyes really has caused some problems in most of the champions league games with his close control and mazy runs forward. I think that he can really cause some damage along with Cole on the left if Belletti, the attacking full back is playing at right back. The same goes for Eboue and Hleb, Van Bronkhurst an Arsenal reject who cant shut up about Henry going to Barcelona, really needs to get rammed over by Hleb and Eboue tonight to just shut him up! The wings will be key for us in attacking them without a doubt. The forward runs of our full backs will create two on one situations, where other defenders will be drawn toward them on the wings, where it will open up spaces for the likes of Ljunberg and Cescy to get in those holes. More so Ljungberg, with Cescy playing a slightly deeper role moving forward to pick out those passes.

Paris is a perfect setting to hopefully what will be a magical night for us all, a masterclass in terms of the players involved, the sort of entertaining attacking football that is played by both teams and the atmosphere will be electric. If your at the match, watching it at home or going to your local to enjoy it with the others, enjoy it because it may well be the only game we get to enjoy this much in a bit of time. Yes we have a great young team, but how many times can you expect a growing up team to get to the champions league final? Im sure the likes of Fabregas, Reyes, Hleb, Eboue, Walcott, Senderos etc will grace the final again one day, but we have never had a better opportunity to bring home this trophy that we all so desperately want and need. Theirry wont have this as his ONLY factor in choosing to stay or go, but I think it wont do any harm for our chances of him staying if we win it! Tonight could well be the night we find out if he is staying….I don’t think im going to be doing anything else all day apart from craving for the game to start because it is truly a proud moment in our history, our tradition and I for one am already proud of what the players and manager have achieved, BUT LETS BRING IT HOME LADS!!

COME ON YOU GOOONERS!!!!!!