The English champion, Arsenal, will play the second Champions League final in its history this Saturday, May 30. 20 years after their final lost in Paris against FC Barcelona, the Gunners have an appointment in Budapest, where they will face the reigning champion, PSG, with the hope of winning the first Big Ears Cup in their history and accomplishing the fabulous Premier League-Champions League double. 20 years after Arsène Wenger’s Invincibles, supporters of the north London club want to believe in it again.
From our correspondent in London,
Stade de France, May 17, 2006. Tears flow down the faces of the Gunners. For two decades, this lost final will remain the ghost of Arsenal. A scar that has never really healed. Bernie was there and if at the time he had been told that he would have had to wait 20 years to see his club in the Champions League final again, he would not have believed it. HAS” It feels like it’s been forever. We all had the feeling and the hope that this was the start of a new era for Arsenal, he remembers. And although we reached the quarter-finals in the meantime, we never quite managed to make that happen by winning the competition. So we have the impression that a lot of time has passed between these two finals, and the impatience as we approach Budapest is truly extraordinary.. »
It took twenty years, twenty years of reconstruction, a change of stage, doubts, even mockery. Twenty years of exile far from European summits. For a whole generation of Arsenal supporters, we learned to tell the story of glory in black and white. But that was before, before the arrival of a man who knew how to relearn Arsenal to win and who redefined the DNA of the club. This man is the coach Mikel Arteta.
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« Twenty years I’ve been waiting for this »
At the George, this pub in north London, two eras come together every weekend. Those who have experienced the European summits pass the torch to those who were too young to see it. Pierre-Antoine is part of this young generation of supporters who were not born or were babies in 2006. In 2006, he was 10 years old. HAS” Twenty years I’ve been waiting for this, I’ve been waiting for this all my life, the Invincibles, that’s what got me into football, but I’m too little in 2004, I’m too young at that time to understand what’s happening, he says. It’s too far away, but there enough to anchor me with my father, who brings me back an Arsenal jersey from a trip to London. Now we can experience something together. It gives me goosebumps just talking about it. But there, for me, whatever happens, it’s already a great season. »
Twenty years later, the red and white jerseys once again invade the stands of a Champions League final, to erase the ghosts of 2006 and bring a new generation of Gunners into history.
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