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Arsenal leave the European party.

joe morris

Thursday, May 8th, 2025

1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 So it is that English football
Takes its leave of Europe
Picking up its passport and
Luggage at the Gare du Nord
Arsenal fall at the semi final hurdle
The Champions League slips from their grasp
Just a friendly croissant to offer
A pat of consolation on their backs
The Eiffel Tower smiles respectfully
On the Gunners valour, bravery, heroism
It was all so agonisingly close
But Paris St Germain were in
A marginally superior classroom
Technically word perfect
On the night
A sleeping giant
Yawns and stretches its limbs
In the city of love and wine
Arsenal though just a bouquet
Away from the finest
Bouteille du vin
Denied on the domestic front
By Liverpool’s most learned
Judges
But Mikel Arteta will
Always have Paris
And shimmering, rippling memories
On the smoothest Seine
But last night was just
One overwhelming obstacle
To clear,
If only they’d found
A modern incarnation of
John Radford and Charlie George
From Highbury’s highest mountains
A Liam Brady to unlock defences
With an aristocratic air
It should have been easy
Only a goal behind from
The first leg at the Emirates
That just stuck in the craw
The doors were open
Salvation almost there
But then there was a demoralising
Thud from Lucas Enrique’s
French boulevardiers
Arsenal start like the
Orient Express gliding through
The Alps before time
Catches up with the Gooners
So close but so far
But the Premier League was
Almost conquered
If not quite
Arteta’s day will come
For Arsenal still play from
Football’s most classical novels
Every pass carefully weighed
Judged and measured
A delight to the eye
How Brian Clough fervently believed
It should always be
And was right
For Arsenal it was Chapman, Mee,
O’Neill and beautifully Arsene Wenger
Their art, their philosophy
On the floor, the deck, terra firma
The grass of sheer purity
But last night was one match too far
After a season that now puffs and pants
Towards the finishing line
Gruelling, exhausting
Crying tendons and hamstrings
The Premier League declares
Liverpool as the loveliest
Most spectacular force
Champions across the land
But Arsenal still admirable
Not that far behind
Still glorious when the mood
Takes them and quite often
Full of finesse
And a vision of ostentatious red
Come on you Gunners
The Champions League will be yours
One day, we know
It’ll be yours to hold

Notes

So Arsenal take their leave of the Champions League and although the Premier League was not to be theirs, their football is still a pleasure to watch. Come on you Gooners.

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Source: https://footballpoets.org/poems/arsenal-leave-the-european-party/