The Triumph of the Saga

Here's the thing. Following football, particularly in the tribal, obsessive, fanatical way that many of us do, is at least on some small level about escapism. It is about leaving behind the 9 to 5 for a couple of hours on the weekend for the hope of distraction by way of a bunch of grown men running around in shorts kicking a ball. To this event, we wear synthetic replica shirts, despair at minor injustices, abuse pantomime villains, and deify these grown men for getting paid to do what we all did for free for hours on end in our own back yards as kids. We are separate from time, living in a moment that does not really exist. It is the ultimate suspension of disbelief. Pretend for a moment that your bills don't exist, that your boss isn't a fucktard, that the government isn't pissing down your back and calling it rain. 

We go to the football or to the pub to watch the football and get lost in the moment. We have the ability to completely block out all other considerations and allow ourselves to become absorbed in the game as well as the pageantry and buffoonery surrounding it. With laser focus we observe all things transpiring on the pitch. How did he manage that piece of skill? Wasn't he a step offside? Was that a shirt pull? Hand to ball or ball to hand? His foot was definitely high and his studs were showing. Did you see that drag-back? Oh he's blocked off his run. Referee! I am not the best at compartmentalizing my feelings in general but when watching the Arsenal I can block everything else out so, so easily.

This phenomenon must in part be attributed to the memory of  playing the game ourselves, the feeling of running around kicking a ball, not caring about anything else. It was even easier to block things out then, probably because we had no real worries, but largely because of the nature of playing sport. The demands and immediacy of intense physical activity make it easy to block out other concerns. Elite athletes are best at this skill, and exploit the intense focus it allows to further develop their sporting abilities. They are the best at living in the moment. Some, such as Dennis Bergkamp, have been attributed with such ability, such 'vision,' that for them it is believed time is perceived to actually slow down, a la the Matrix.

Now, since the days of Bergkamp  [not so long ago but long enough for say, an entire phenomenon such as Twitter to be born, take root, and explode] there has been a discernible increase in the stimulation people generally experience in their day to day lives. Business moves faster, the media pushes sensationalism to grab attention in a more and more crowded social landscape, advertisements bombard us from all sides, and the world, while growing smaller and smaller, gets more and more crammed with just so. much. stuff. 

Players only a generation or so later, such as van Persie, grew up in this world. The constant stimulation is normative for a player like him. It stands to reason that his ability to live in the moment, in order to ply his trade, would need to be heightened to cope with the environment surrounding a top level footballer. He can achieve the focus necessary to push his abilities by blocking out the emotions that pressure from family, friends, and life in general can exert.

It is this ability to ignore those pressure exerting emotions that gives a player like van Persie the capacity to 'turn his back' on the club where he developed into a world class striker. For him a move away from Arsenal is just like receiving the ball and weighing up his passing options in a split second on the pitch. Is he open? It looks like his defender is recovering too quickly. Better off to pass it into space where my other teammate is more open. On the pitch he can be exacting and ruthless against an international teammate like van der Vaart in the North London derby or Affelay for Barcelona.

This might be construed as an argument that van Persie's statement is driven by football motives. And I'm sure that in some ways it is. But you can be equally certain that money is playing a massive role, especially if he ends up joining Manchester City. It would be very difficult for RvP to say it was about football if he arrives at the team Adebayor played for when he stomped Robin in the face. It would be more difficult for him to claim football was at the heart of a move that would likely limit his time on the pitch, given Aguero's importance in their line-up, as well as Balotelli's and Tevez' presence in the side. Dzeko isn't bad either. 

No mistake, RvP played himself right up into the upper echelons of current football greats over the last 18 months, but I have a very hard time imagining he would play for City even remotely as much as at Arsenal. Hleb's comments about his Champions League medal at Barca ring especially strongly here [a very relevant aside, I typed in 'Alex Hleb' in Google and the first result was 'alex hleb regrets leaving arsenal']. Perhaps he's ignoring that reality too, enabled by the lure of the millions on offer. The focus on the now for a footballer in his prime gives way to the cultural obsession with trophies, brand name luxury, expensive lifestyle, etc, and obfuscates the perspective necessary to appreciate repaying a football debt as described by Wenger.

Oddly enough, for fans that ability to ignore everything has invaded the life it is meant to escape, via blogs, forums, and twitter, to the degree that supporters around the world are chatting about the football rather than doing their jobs. And in this venue, the laser focus can shift from the beauty of the game to the ugliness of the business. Particularly the transfer business and epic drawn-out sagas such as the ones that have embroiled our mighty Arsenal over the past several years. Vieira, Henry, Fabregas, van Persie. The names roll off the head and into the virtual realm with regularity. So rather than blocking out the the unpleasing aspects of following our chosen club, we obsess over them, wringing our hands over our keyboards ad nauseum. 

So it's hard to let go of a player like van Persie because the story smacks us in the face every day during the transfer window, especially if you have a Twitter account. Ironically though, noticing a few tweets about the NLD on television last night, I decided to watch for a bit. I was a bit surprised at how easy it was to get lost in the game as if it were live, and completely forget all the RvP nonsense that lie in wait, months in the future, so to speak. I wasn't muttering about him being a money grabbing cunt or a back stabbing mercenary. 

I was too busy wondering how in the fuck he could have missed those two early chances, and got so caught up bemoaning the shot that hit the post that I almost missed Bacary Sagna's blistering header. I watched it back and realized that while van Persie was on the ground miserable about his poor luck, Bac was still following the play and getting himself into position. When he thumped the header in it almost took me by surprise as if I were seeing it for the first time.

I watched the rest of the game and realized how much quality from every player went into that performance. We crafted so many chances, put in so many tackles, applied so much pressure all over the pitch, all as a team. Granted van Persie was not without his involvement in the goals, much of what happened throughout the game was down to brilliant play from all of our side. 

I could imagine a player like Podolski slotting into the central role and being very effective. With the work Sagna put in on the right and Gibbs on the left, I could see Giroud profiting with chances. I could even imagine the effect of RvP's absence in a player like Theo. That chance he passed up early on, he may instead have just taken for himself. 

I ended up watching the whole match. By the end, rather than being pissed even more at the thought of van Persie's departure, I was looking forward to seeing what happens next season, regardless. The ability to get lost in the game gave me the pause to find the joy again. Out of another tedious transfer saga I realized the only saga that matters, the one that happens every week between some bunch of cunts against the heroes wearing red shirts with white sleeves. Roll on Arsenal.

Follow @11cannons