arsenal v. liverpool

we were fortunate enough to have been able to attend a football (i.e. soccer) match already in the little time that we've been here. people had said that watching a football match is something we should try to do if we get a chance, since it's such a different experience to anything in north america. europeans are pretty enthusiastic (if not fanatical) about their football, and the english are no different.

we were very lucky to be able to catch a match so early on. in fact, we got to watch two fairly prominent clubs do battle at the emirates stadium. it's a fairly new, modern stadium and was very nice. we should also mention that it was the first leg of the FA cup final. all this may sound very impressive, but for those of you who follow football will know very well that arsenal and liverpool were not the two finalists in the FA cup this year. the match we attended was, in fact, the youth FA cup final.

of course, this wasn't necessarily the same as watching the big club play, but it was still an awesome experience (especially since we managed to get tickets through our season-ticketholder friend for only 5 pounds each). despite it being only the youth team, the announced attendance was still about 34,000. can you imagine that? the capacity at the ACC is only 20,000 or so. and even at 34,000 fans, the stadium was only a little over half full. we learned from our friend that the capacity for the stadium is 65,000, which makes it the fourth largest stadium in england (wembley, twickenham and old trafford are the other three).

the match itself seemingly started off on the wrong..er..foot, with both teams misfiring on a number of basic passes. however, once they settled their nerves, the level of play picked up and the game flowed quite well after that. the level of skill, even at the youth level, was quite impressive. on a couple occasions, a defender would take a pass off his chest and play the ball to the other side of the field without it ever touching the ground. other times, the strikers would pull off impossible changes of direction while still carrying the ball at a full sprint.

even the substitutes were incredibly talented. during the halftime break, the reserves came onto the field to practice and stay warm. they were just messing around, but demonstrating some impressive tricks that were probably showcased on some previous nike or adidas commercial. one of the guys who was in our group is from yorkshire has a brother who played at a similar level, and even he noted that the reserves were quite 'handy' (as he called it, even though you never use your hands in football).

then there was the singing. we happened to be on the side with the majority of arsenal supporters. the liverpool fans were concentrated in the corner opposite us. as such, we were treated to several chants intended to rouse the arsenal side to acts of footballing glory. it was extremely difficult to make out exactly what it was they were chanting, but it was good fun nonetheless. one day, we'll ask our friend to teach us some so we can sing along. (she told us a funny story of a group of arsenal fans at the local pub - aptly named "the gunners" - who sang this song called "let's pretend arsenal have scored a goal" which is essentially an invitation to celebrate as if a goal had been scored, i.e. go crazy)

at one point, the crowd even got a wave going. it kept going round and round until one section stopped it. this was met with a chorus of booing from the rest of the stadium. the wave was restarted and when it successfully passed through the offending section this time around, everyone cheered.

in the end, arsenal were victorious by a score of 4-1. we were treated to goals of all different sorts, including one off a long, hail-mary type pass, one from a quick counter-attack, one from a corner and another that involved almost the entire team. watching a football match is something that you should try to experience if you're ever in the UK. we can only imagine what a proper match would be like, let alone a euro or world cup event.

since we live in the area, we likely will be adopting arsenal as our club. unfortunately, they won't be winning anything this year (much like the leafs), but there's always next season!