gutted

.. .

Victoria Concordia Crescit

You know how somewhere throughout our lives, there're one of those moments that you'll find yourself remembering every minute detail, every little tingling emotion you felt, and it's almost as if everything's frozen in time when u reminsce years and years from now.

This could be one of those special nights in my life. And there's just one itzy bitzy determinant variable the separates defines this threshold between a night that i will remember for years to come and a night that would otherwise (hopefully) fall into the abyss of selective amnesia.

Nope, it isn't sex nor my virginity that's at on the line. It's far more important than that. It's Arsenal's virginity at stake -the inaugral chance to pop the proverbial European Cup cherry.

For far too long has the holy grail of European football eluded the only premier European football club. This is true, especially when u consider that Arsenal is the only one of 4 clubs in the G14 that has never won the European cup.

The same is however, true for true for the-only-other-team-that-i-feverently-support. That only-other-team, is without a doubt the only premier debating institution that has never strike gold.

I've probably mentioned it somewhere here before, that i've always personally associated that-only-other-team with Arsenal and perceived it to be its non-football equivalent (albeit with less silverware to show for). It was back in 1999 when i found the path to my spiritual development by adopting Highbury as my football mecca. It was also that year when i was part of that very only-other-team. Back then, despite riding on a double success in the 97/98 season, Arsenal found themselves playing the perennial bridesmate to the uglier bride (read: Manchester United) for several consecutive seasons. The same happened for that-only-other-team, reaching the national finals both 99' and 00', and the semis in 2003, but never winning it.

So 2004 came, and while Arsenal was blazing a trail of invincibility in the EPL while the-only-other-team achieved unprecendented success in winning our first silverwares in other competitions, the bid to attain for their respective holy grails (European Cup and JGs) ended to no avail. Nevermind the fact that both teams were by far the most stylish and competitive teams in their respective arenas.

So then came 2006. Against all odds, both teams made unprecedented progress in their renewed crusade for the holy grail. Arsenal making past the quarter-finals of the Champions League, and the-only-other-team-that-i-feverently-support breaking through the JG preliminary rounds undefeated and as the top ranked team of the tab.

Yet, as providence dictates it wasn't to be for the dictators.

By some outrageous abdomination-of-an-adjudication, the only-other-team was eliminated while Arsenal found themselves going on to take a place in their first the European Cup final tonight.

For all the parallels i draw, this was one significantly amomaly in my hopelessly unfounded hypothesis. I can't help but to wonder what it would have been for that-only-other-team had the adjudicating abdomination not presided over that fateful quarter-finals match. But of course, being the hoplessly irrational trend charter that i am, there's the potential David Gabriel's football equivalent in the form of the linesman who posed a picture in a Barcelona shirt who would have presided over tonight's European Cup final if not for UEFA's intervention.

If there were three Arsenal players whom i could use to describe the-only-other-team-of-2006, they would have been Jens Lehmann, Cesc Fabregas and Thierry Henry. Who are they respectively? Well go figure it out yourselfs my intelligent dictators.

If there was indeed any tenable parallel between my two favourite teams in the greater scheme of things, for tonight at least, let there be a divergence of fate and allow Arsenal achieve what it has so belatedly deserved to achieve. Perhaps it is only when the independent variable ends a century of heartbreaks, can the dependent variable truly end 8 generations of disappointment. And perhaps football success, is afterall, a leading indicator of debating success.

Victoria Concordia Crescit
With Harmony Comes Victory

'Good O' Arsenal, we're proud to say that name, While we sing this song we'll win the game!'