Nick Hornby as my Psychoanalyst the Morning After the Barcelona Match

Animated GIF courtesy of 7AM Kickoff's Twitter account

Yesterday I came home from eight days of business travel in Mississippi.  It was a rewarding trip, but I was ready to get home.  I don't begrudge people's lifestyle choices, but I do know Mississippi is not for me.  So yesterday's chain of events couldn't be better: I got to come home to the Pacific Northwest, got to enjoy the company of my wife for the first time in over a week, and then I got to see my Gunners exorcise a bit of a demon in classic fashion.  They still have lot of soccer left to play, but last night was a big step forward for a much maligned set of young Gunners.  They've stood strong against Manchester United, with a return match yet to play. They've beaten Chelsea.  Now they've beaten Barcelona.

Watching last night's game, I couldn't help but recall Nick Hornby's keys to an exciting match in Fever Pitch.  First up on his list is what happened last night:

Goals: As many as possible.  There is an argument which says that goals begin to lose their value in particularly easy victories, but I have never found this a problem... If the goals are to be shared, then it is best if the other team get their first..."

Knocking on the door for so long only to be rewarded with a Barca goal was tough, but it made the van Persie and Arshavin goals all the more satisfying.  The crowd seemed to feel the same way, as their volume only intensified to levels I had not heard in my several years of watching matches from the Emirates.  That leads us to Hornby's third ingredient to a great match.

A noisy crowd: In my experience, crowds are at their best when their team is losing but playing well, which is one of the reasons why coming back for a 3-2 win is my favorite kind of score.

It may not have been a 3-2 win, but a 2-1 win against Barcelona sure feels like a 3-2 win with the way they can score goals at an instant.  The defense last night was stout.  The offense threatened many times, and it seems the substitution strategy by both managers proved the difference.  It was simply brilliant soccer to watch, a match well worth the hype.

So much of my blog is about the numbers, almost as a way to cope with the flowing emotion that is the beautiful game. Last night I was exhausted, eight days on the road that had culminated in 10 hours of travel and two hours of time zone changes.  I was beat, and the first half of the match was a bit tough for me. No matter the numbers - the shots on goal, the time of possession, etc. - I had faith things would turn around in the second half.  And no matter how calm and collected the numbers may make me, there was no sense in holding back my emotion after Arsenal's goals.  The first goal by van Persie led to a "Are you kidding me?!?!?!" yell with a couple of expletives I won't repeat here.  Several minutes later, Arshavin's goal led me to jump off the coach and run down the hallway yelling.  No matter how many matches I watch, I think Hornby was right:

Absurdly, I haven't yet got around to saying that football is a wonderful sport, but of course it is. Goals have a rarity value that points and runs and sets do not, and so there will always be that thrill, the thrill of seeing someone do something that can only be done three or four times in a whole game if you are lucky... It allows players to look beautiful and balletic in a way that some sports do not: a perfectly-timed diving header, or a perfectly-struck volley, allow the body to achieve a poise and grace that some sportsmen can never exhibit.

I can't wait for the return match three weeks from now.