The most affecting image of the season now ending might be those four Arsenal players ambling across the concourse of the Emirates Stadium at 5am like lads merrily leaving a casino at dawn.
Dressed in what might be called the opposite of George Graham-era blazers, ties and flannel slacks, Declan Rice, Eberechi Eze and Bukayo Sako are sporting gear this commentary would make a horrible mess of describing, and therefore will not try (Jurriën Timber is more understatedly attired). Except to say that to see title-winning footballers framed by the community they represent and the society they are part of was uplifting.
You reach an age where the practicalities feel like everything. So when the happy quartet skipped down the steps of the stadium towards the streets, people of a certain vintage will have thought: how did they get home? Maybe out of shot a fleet of Arsenal limos was gliding round a corner to chauffeur them to gated mansions.
But it didn’t feel that way. It looked as if the four mates were making it up as they went along. The incredulity of Arsenal fans who were still up celebrating and suddenly found their idols sauntering past was testament both to the astonishing star power of footballers and how fans have come to see them as post-human avatars, digitalised warriors, who couldn’t possibly join them on the streets, bleary, at 5am.
The clink and rattle of bottles and cans on the concrete as they strode past suspended football’s disconnect between audience and performer. It was an armistice in the dynamic of players being the target zone for fan yearnings, adulation and, more darkly, resentment, anger and even hatred. Now they were entirely human.
The Arsenal four were free of the club’s 22-year wait for a league title; free of the 38-game trial of the spirit in which everyone over-extrapolates every day and nobody ever stops yelling their opinions.
“Bottle” was a motif of the night. Much of the rest of football had said Arsenal lacked it and now Mikel Arteta’s squad could throw that back in social media’s gurning face. Arteta the apprentice had usurped Guardiola the master and now Arsenal could … what … relax?
Oh no. Winning the Premier League was only catharsis No 1. There’s another one out there waiting. It could take 90 minutes to achieve or it might take years or even decades. Unlike Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea, Manchester City, Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest, Arsenal have never won the European Cup/Champions League.
Declan Rice (left) with L-R Jurriën Timber, Eberechi Eze and Bukayo Saka outside the Emirates at 5am
They carry an extra scar as well, from 2006, when Arsene Wenger went in search of his crowning glory, in Paris, in a final where just about everything that could go wrong did against Barcelona. Arsenal’s goalkeeper Jens Lehmann was sent off after 18 minutes for pulling down Samuel Eto’o. They still took the lead, with a Sol Campbell header. But after Eto’o’s equaliser, Juliano Belletti nutmegged the reserve keeper Manuel Almunia 10 minutes from time. Wenger sat in the dugout without a jacket as rain blew in and soaked his shirt and tie.
Some Arsenal supporters may regard next weekend’s showdown with PSG as a kind of end-of-season “bonus”, free of pressure. And yet the team’s exemplary record on the road to Hungary bestows an obligation to treat it as far more than a post-party gathering.
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In this campaign Arsenal were the first side to go unbeaten in the first 14 matches of a Champions League campaign. Six goals were all they conceded. Max Dowman became the youngest debutant in the competition’s history at 15 years and 308 days. Two years ago Arsenal reached the quarter-finals. Last year – the semis. They’re “all in” at Budapest’s Puskás Aréna, whether they have the legs for it or not. They go not on a lap of honour but in search of a double that would eclipse the joint domestic League and FA Cup victories of 1971, 1998 and 2002.
Whatever emotional state the Gunners are in when they take Crystal Palace’s guard of honour at Selhurst Park this weekend the next challenge is an unusual one. To be English and European champions, they will have to defeat two countries in a row: two nation states.
To hold Manchester City off required a triumph over the wealth and legal might of Abu Dhabi, whose lawyers are contesting 115 charges of breaching financial rules. To prevail over surely the “best” side in Europe in next Saturday’s Champions League final they will have to outsmart another Gulf state entity. Qatar’s gas exports have been severely affected by war but there is no sign of anxiety filtering down to Luis Enrique’s brilliant team, who are defending champions, as they try to decode Arsenal’s best-in-class defending.
This is not to cast England’s representatives as the angels in a battle of good v bad. With their box of tricks (grappling, time-wasting) and billionaire, sports empire American ownership (Stan Kroenke), the new Premier League champions are willing players, and spenders, in European football’s arms race.
To beat two nation states in a row, lay Paris in 2006 to rest, complete the Premier League-Champions League double, and claim a first European title, is a range of challenges that ought to freshen up the star revellers who moved among their people in the early hours of Wednesday morningt. Put it this way: let’s hope there’s an episode two of those clips.
Photographs by Julian Finney/Getty Images, @declanrice / Instagram