The agony and ecstasy of today's Carling Cup Final reminded us that professional sports, no matter how irritating and infantile they often seem, can still produce drama that no Oscar-nominated performance can hope to replicate. It also reminded us that, despite their recent famous 2-1 victory over Barcelona in the UEFA Champions League earlier this month, Arsenal still lack the so-called "killer instinct" necessary to add to a trophy cabinet that hasn't been opened in nearly six years.
Maybe John Henry Bought the Wrong Red Club
It's difficult to overstate just how maddening this defeat will be for Arsenal and their supporters. Though Arsene Wenger once perceived the Carling Cup as little more than an opportunity to blood some of the academy's youngest talent, the Gunners were clearly aiming at it this year, hoping some long overdue silverware would sate fans and silence some critics. Not only was the Carling Cup no longer below their station, they actually needed it. In fact, they were the only club that needed to win it. To lose it in such tragicomic fashion is a cruel blow of Bucknerian proportions.
I drop the gratuitous Bucker reference here not just because I'm a Yankees fan and spring training is upon us. No, I do it because in Arsenal's Carling collapse, I detected the same grim inevitability that "cursed" the Boston Red Sox, owned by the same John W. Henry who's in charged at Liverpool, before their improbable World Series win in 2004. Though Birmingham City's tactics were reasonably effective for most of the first sixty minutes or so, Arsenal's class gradually started to tell and Ben Foster began to resemble Sonny in the tollbooth scene of The Godfather. Sure, if they didn't score in regular time, they risked the lottery of penalty kicks, but most people would have put their money on Arsenal breaking through in extra time (kind of like the similarly passtastic Spain in last year's World Cup Final). And yet, even though they were bossing the match, I couldn't help but feel that somehow, some way Arsenal was going to find a way to lose. That's pretty much the way I felt about the Sox when Aaron Boone kicked Red Sox Nation in the proverbial junk in Game 7 of the ALCS. How Henry and the Red Sox reacted to that spectacular disappointment helped chart the course to two World Series championships over the following three seasons (and a team that, much to my chagrin, should be a prohibitive favorite this year). Though they dumped their unheralded manager--who, unlike Wenger, wielded little influence within the organization--they didn't hit the panic button and their patience paid off handsomely. Will Arsenal do the same? Now, Arsenal's barren patch cannot compare to the Sox's 86-year drought, but when you play in the Information Age and in a league in which you are one of four clubs that have a legitimate chance to win, six years can seem an awfully long time.
Arsenal have been accused of lacking a lot of things--a leader on the pitch, an adequate goal keeper and a killer instinct, of course--but it seems to have patience in abundance. You have to wonder if that may change as the club's board and supporters tire of the same old Arsenal.
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