{"id":11919,"date":"2025-09-15T20:19:46","date_gmt":"2025-09-15T19:19:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=11919"},"modified":"2025-09-16T21:18:04","modified_gmt":"2025-09-16T20:18:04","slug":"can-we-reprise-the-emirates-cup-final","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=11919","title":{"rendered":"Can We Reprise the Emirates Cup Final?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The Arsenal begin our latest quest for our first ever UEFARCE Champions League in sunny Bilbao against Athletic Club in tomorrow\u2019s early kick off at San Mames. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last season\u2019s Champions League campaign produced some truly euphoric memories before it all came crashing down on an unforgiving early summer\u2019s evening in Paris. After that magical night in Madrid, I don\u2019t think I\u2019m alone in thinking this would finally be our year. Sadly, due to our ridiculously bad luck with injuries and Donnarumma\u2019s string of remarkable saves, it wasn\u2019t to be. However, given our unprecedented summer of spending, perhaps this year we will finally get our hands on the trophy that has always found a way of eluding us and instead finding the hands of some less deserving entities, shall we say. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On paper, this is probably a game we should win. In the grand scheme of things, a draw wouldn\u2019t be the end of the world, but we are building momentum following the convincing win over Forest and it would be quite ideal to continue that ahead of the visit of the biggest soulless entity of them all on Sunday afternoon. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bilbao are a decent side by all accounts, but they did lose their 100% start to the La Liga season going down 1-0 to Alaves on Saturday. They have some decent players like goalkeeper Unai Simon who actually starts for Spain over David Raya. There is also Nico Williams who was of course heavily linked with a move to N5 along with a host of other clubs before penning a 10(!) year contract with his boyhood club in the summer. No place like home, I suppose. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Athletic are of course famous for their policy of only signing Basque players meaning a lot of investment goes into their academy. Their local approach makes it all the more impressive that they have never been relegated from the Spanish top tier. In fact, outside of the evil twins Barca and Real they are undoubtedly one of Spain\u2019s most successful clubs winning La Liga eight times and the Copa Del Rey 24 times which is only bettered by Barcelona. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bilbao\u2019s main rivals are Real Sociedad so I\u2019m sure Mikel Merino and Martin Zubimendi will be expecting and receiving a frosty reception to say the least. Nothing they can\u2019t handle, I\u2019m sure! Athletic were one of the founder members of La Liga in 1928 and by 1930 five of the ten clubs in the division were Basque. The saying, \u201cwith home-grown teams and support, there is no need to import\u201d became particularly apt. It doesn\u2019t exactly rhyme in Spanish, but it almost does. The club went through a lot of turmoil following the Civil War in the 1930\u2019s and had to rebuild the team almost from scratch which they were able to do and by the 1950\u2019s they were winning league titles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Athletic struggled for glory in the 60\u2019s and 70\u2019s partially due to the dominance of Real Madrid but they returned to glory in 1983 winning the title with great players such as Luis De La Fuente who of course now manages the Spanish National team. They have not managed to win the title since. The 21st<\/sup> century has been a little up and down but Athletic seem to have resolidified themselves as a solid European side. They reached the 2012 Europa League Final only to lose to Atletico Madrid and in 2024 they ended a 40 year wait for Copa Del Rey glory, beating Mallorca 4-2 in the final. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Athletic are clearly a club who are immensely proud of their heritage and rightly so. It\u2019s a small city but famous for its great cuisine and of course bull fighting. Due to the short turnaround and lack of flights, away tickets have gone all the way down to red members so hopefully plenty of Gooners will be afforded the chance to watch us on the continent and to sample the culture and local watering holes! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for the team selection, I don\u2019t think Arteta will want to tinker too much with the team ahead of Sunday, but we may well see a debut for Piero Hincapi\u00e9. And perhaps, Nwaneri will be given a start in \u00d8degaard\u2019s likely absence.  You can only rotate so much in the Champions League which Arteta will be aware of. There are no easy games in this competition. Apart from Spurs obviously. And Celtic and Rangers both failed to qualify so I suppose someone must take over the role of European Cup cannon fodder. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But unlike the two North London Derbies we play every year, Bilbao will provide a stern test, and it will be a good early examination of our potential Champions League winning credentials. we are one of the competition favourites and teams will be set up against us with that in mind. Last year we proved we can lump it with the European elite, now we must maintain it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

COYG!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Arsenal begin our latest quest for our first ever UEFARCE Champions League in sunny Bilbao against Athletic Club in tomorrow\u2019s early kick off at San Mames.  Last season\u2019s Champions League campaign produced some truly euphoric memories before it all came crashing down on an unforgiving early summer\u2019s evening in Paris. After that magical night […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11919"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11919"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11919\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11924,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11919\/revisions\/11924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}