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The Robin van Persie transfer saga has played its final card. Mouths have been fouled, venomous hate spewed, and hearts broken. A knight in shining armour has turned pantomime villain. An angel, in the eyes of some, has fallen from grace. All the same, egos have been bruised, tempers flared, and pockets lined. But this transfer is not just about one man, no matter how sought after. It is about a legacy; a fierce rivalry with no peer. It is about the end of this legacy, as we know it.
Two masters have battled it out for supremacy in England. One, a fiery Scotsman, whose wrath spares none. The other, a French master tactician, who truly epitomises the beautiful game. While the Scot may have enjoyed a vast majority of the triumphs, he will, no doubt, be secretly wishing it was he that had the Invincibles. The Frenchman, on the other hand, will berate himself for being too gentle, and allowing his stars to leave the club in pursuit of one vice or another, leaving him to wonder where he went wrong. And this time, more than any before, it will hurt. The undoubted star of his squad last season has just become his first ever sale to Manchester United. He fought valiantly, but in the end, all he was doing was delaying the inevitable.
The painting above, for those of you accurate with history, is what remains of the Berlin wall, and depicts Leonid Brezhnev and Erich Honecker locked in what is infamously known as the fraternal kiss, the occasion being the 30th anniversary of the declaration of East Germany as a Communist state. What makes it ironic is that it was painted as a stark reminder once the Berlin wall was torn down in 1990, re-uniting West and East Germany, each of which had feared football teams, and were considerable rivals on the football pitch. It is said that Alex Ferguson had a personal discussion with Arsene Wenger over the Dutch striker’s move to United, and you will, I hope, forgive me if I dare say that the above image might just as well have had Ferguson and Wenger locked in loving embrace.
I do not say that to titillate, or to parade myself and draw attention, for I believe the transfer itself will do that. I say that because if you told a staunch Red back in 2004 that Ferguson would himself reach out to Wenger for a transfer, you would have been met with hearty guffaws, and perhaps a couple of slaps to bring you back to your senses. It would have been worse, if you had told a Gooner that Wenger would allow his star striker to move to United, as you would perhaps have been given an additional few kicks in the groin. So what happened?
Roy Keane. Patrick Vieira. You know the rest. A rivalry so intense, it made its way off the pitch, into the tunnels, and a million other places no rivalry had ever reached before. But it was all too good to last. Those pulsating matches which would drive you crazy, those next 90 minutes you looked forward to right after the previous 90 minutes, the world class talents turning into zealous soldiers; this rivalry had it all. But then came the drought. Arsenal‘s trophy drought, stretching all of seven years now, pushed them down the pecking order in England. The blues rose, first the dark blue of the Roman army, then the sky blue of the Sheikhs. And with this, the Scot found bigger challenges to surmount, and finally saw that the Frenchman wasn’t so bad after all.
Pleasantries began to be exchanged by the touchline, handshakes were more than mere formality, and the cold war had ended. Quite akin to the actual cold war, it is the desire to keep other parties from rising to power that drives these two onto the same path. A path on which they shall, if begrudgingly, try not to destroy each other but focus on the common enemy instead. A path which leads to the Etihad stadium. A path on which the Frenchman travels to unleash revenge on those who lured away his stars, laying his hard work to waste. And a path on which the Scot travels to wield his mighty nous, brush away the bruises of last season, and reclaim the crown he believes is rightfully his. Who shall succeed remains to be seen.
If you notice carefully, there is a writing below the painting which says in German, ‘Mein Gott Hilf Mir Diese Todliche Liebe Zu Uberlebend’. Translate to English: ‘My God, help me to survive this deadly love’. Try as you might, you cannot deny that the rivalry between the two great clubs has a romanticism of its own; and with a strange yet deadly love brewing between Arsenal and United, fans of other clubs would do well to pray the same.
