Blog/2026-05-19/Twenty Two Years
Today, for the first time in twenty-two years, Arsenal are champions of England once again.
When I was a teenager, my friends were a lot more into football than me. The biggest contingent at the time at school were the United fans, and there were a few straggler Liverpool fans, but my closest friend group were almost all fans of The Arsenal. As kids, we saw Arsenal go unbeaten in the league. Little did we know that for the next two decades, we'd be fourth, and then second, and then miss the Champions' League entirely, and then second, and second, and second.
I've been in a group chat with my childhood friends as we've hoped and hoped that this was the year. Every year. So many times we've come so close. But what's funny is how this brings back old memories of times by the beach as we played football in the sand, times we played at the Aspiran Gardens ground in Kilpauk (winners stay on) early in the morning after a whole night spent playing DOTA, rubbing the ball on the ground to clean it after it goes in the sewer on the far side.
My classmates from school now are all married, and most of us have children, and it's hard to imagine today looking back into the past. And it's hard relating so much to Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby. I remember the moment Wenger finally left the club, the manager who had been in charge all the years I'd been a fan. It's strange what constants we build up in our life. Every year things change, but you watch Arsenal put up a fight for the title and then collapse in February, or injuries mar the campaign, or someone else signs the player of the generation and we're hammered by them.
I recall one day when I knew I was watching Wenger's last Champions League game when Koscielny got sent off, the traveling Bayern fans chanted louder than us all "Superbayern! Superbayern!" and we got battered 5-1. I remember celebrating the first goal (ours), moaning the red card, and then saying "Surely that's the last time we see Wenger in the Champions League". I'd moved back to San Francisco by the time he quit and when I heard the news it was like a constant in my life had been changed. I'd finished high school, college, my Master's degree, moved to America, finished my obligatory (for an Indian) second Master's degree, moved to San Francisco for an internship, been promoted, been assigned a foreign gig, returned home to San Francisco but through it all, every year the same manager led the same club as we got closer and then farther and then almost made it every time. Every season we'd gripe about rotations, injuries, the ref's decisions changing. One year, we did the double over Leicester only for them to win regardless. This was it. This was how life was. Other things changed, but this stayed the same. Next year maybe we'd sign someone.
I could never have imagined my life today. Here I am, married and with a one-year-old daughter. So many of my friends on our shared Arsenal WhatsApp group from childhood have also married and many have children. And except for Wenger, everything else has continued to stay the same. By the time Arteta came back to us as a manager after working under Guardiola we'd gotten used to the same routine. We'd had high-profile signings before: I remember when both Nikhil[1] and I saw the news of the Özil signing and ran to each other's rooms screaming with joy.
When Ødegaard signed, it felt like when Ozil had signed. Yet again we'd scream our disbelief that a Real Madrid star was joining us! Then suddenly we were 2nd! It seemed possible again, though our moaning about City's financing had the smell of an old well-worn blanket. But then we were second again. And again. The hope and the pain, again. Every year, better than before, and yet not the best. The sadness was comforting in its familiarity.
But then this season. All the way to the death. And how many times did Arsenal falter this time, and how many times did we think ourselves lost. With a treble, perhaps a quadruple, in sight, we lost the first two rapidly. Here we were again. That familiar feeling. That fear. The headlines wrote themselves: "Always the bridesmaids never the bride", "Arsenal bottle it again". Many of us had already made our peace that perhaps the only joy we'd see is Tottenham relegated. None of us wanted the other cups, of course, except as a springboard to win the League. Wenger alone had more F.A. Cups than any other club but United; Arsenal as a whole many more. We had that. We didn't need that. But would going all the way to our first Champions' League final in decades burn the team out and have us fall second at everything again?
When we lost against City 2-1, my friend Sripad[2] said the same thing he's said for decades but this time it felt real. The heartbreak would be too much. "I don't think I can handle another year of this", he said, but this time for the first time in decades I really felt it. I was growing up. I had a family now. My wife, turned a Spurs fan many years prior by a coworker, remarked that she was losing either way. Even if Arsenal lost, she'd have to cope with my being less cheery all day. Quite embarrassing and yet true. It was time to move on. Like it had been for years.
Then the tide turned. Arsenal started grinding them out, 1-0 each time. That familiar hope. That familiar fear. But against all odds, the toffees held City, though Doku's equalizer in stoppage time reminded us of just what a team they were. In our heads so many times, we've heard it. "That's the thing that champions do. Cool under pressure". But Arsenal held a solid 1-0 against another relegation team, and we all gathered to hate-watch City's game against Bournemouth. When Haaland predictably equalized in the 94th, I fell back on the thing I do when I encounter disappointment, envy, or sadness: I turned around and looked at my family and said to myself "It doesn't matter. You have all this. It's just a game". It is just a game. But it's also been my life.
So we counted the seconds down, and down and down till the game ended, improbably 1-1. And we find ourselves Champions of England! Everything has changed, and nothing has changed. I'm a teenager again.
