The Big Mac of football

I am old. I have seen plenty of football. I have suffered and I have celebrated. I have been overtly emotional (often too much) and learnt that being emotional is probably one of the worst things a human can be. 

And so in football: I have preferences, but I have seen it all, and I know that sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. But as important as winning or losing, is the question of how you win or how you lose. 

Just like in life. Arsenal are efficient, effective, get results: just like a Big Mac.

Don't mistake me. I recognise that Arsenal are a great team, and today they showed it. When Kai Havertz brought them ahead early on in the match through a splendid run down the right side, Arsenal pulled back and defended with discipline and tactical intelligence, cancelling Vitinha in midfield and the threatening runs of Karavashkelia. Despite possession, PSG, perhaps the best attacking side in the world right now, could not get through the tight defense, while Arsenal played on a possible corner kick.

I am a football fan, and I don't want football to turn into a contest of corner kicks, and I think that with Arsenal's quality they could and should have tried to score a "real" goal in the first half, when PSG were clearly confused as to what to do about Arsenal's defense.

I was happy for the the game of football more than for PSG when the Parisians managed to equalise by Ousemane Dembele on a penalty kick. 

Home made food had finally scored against the Big Mac of football. 

At the score 1-1 Arsenal again started to attack more, but still seemed to go more for a corner-kick than they did for a goal...?

PSG fortunately won on penalty kicks, with Gabriel Magalhaes missing the last kick for Arsenal in an intense contest.

People may be annoyed at PSG; they have won their second title since last year's trashing of Inter Milan, but for the game of football it is surely better to have a team like PSG win, than a team who plays like Arsenal. 

Arsenal's 2006 CL final side were amazing, but lost to an even more amazing Barcelona side. This Arsenal side would have gone into history for winning, but nobody would remember how they played.

I am a romantic; even worse, I am emotional. I like the art of football: enjoying a great game between footballers with quality and who are not afraid to show it; just like enjoying a delicious home-made meal rather than a BigMac.

Arsenal are the BigMac of football. They excel at the only thing that counts in the today: efficiency, results, numbers and winning.

Fortunately they lost. 

Arsenal champion

 It was bound to happen, finally, that Arsenal would be declared champions of the Premier League, but it did not happen on the last match-day, but instead happened on the 37th match-day when Bournemouth and Manchester City tied 1-1, and gave Arsenal the title. That said, Arsenal also won their last match 1-2 over Crystal Palace, enough to claim that nothing had been given away.

After 22 years the title returns to Arsenal in style under a successful Mikel Arteta, who still has a chance for a bigger title in the Champions League final next Saturday against PSG. Arsenal may not have been the most exciting side, but they are solid and have perfected the corner kick to become a winning (but boring) formula. 

Congratulations to Arsenal fans, including my cat Whisky.

 

My teams in the 2026 World Cup

In every World Cup, I have my favourite teams, countries that I in some way have some personal relationship to. That said, it is particular that in this World Cup with 48 teams, some of my favourites like Denmark and Chile have not qualified. That said, these are the countries I will follow:

• Argentina: where I lived as a child, will still be my favourite as I hope that they are able to defend their title
• Colombia: country of my mother. I hope they do well and will be supporting them as they play in Mexico City as well, with the certain invasion of a yellow army of fans for an overpriced match.
• Spain: Country where I lived and have family from, will be one of the favourites to take the title with an extraordinary team, and they will also play in Mexico, specifically in Guadalajara, against Uruguay
• USA: Lived there one year as a teenager; they may surprise at home, but I do not think they can go all the way, neither will I particularly support them.
• Ghana: My favourite African team since my time there 2003-2006, and their first World Cup in 2006, I have many lovely memories, and will be wearing my Black Stars shirt for the matches against England and Croatia!
• Mexico: I will surely support Mexico as they try to shine at home, mainly because of their fantastic fans as I do not find the squad very exciting. Perhaps it is good that they won't face Denmark!

All this said, it is not easy to get excited by this excessive, over-priced, over-hyped, and highly politicized World Cup; but I will watch nevertheless.

And Barcelona champion again

I could not watch the match between Barcelona and Real Madrid. No matter how many subscriptions to different TV platforms and cable, these special matches are only shown on some other special channel, and it is increasingly annoying.

Money rules, and money rules in particular when these two teams play. Real Madrid will end its second season in a row without a single title and with serious crisis in a squad where the superstar Kylian Mbappe has never won a title, and the club he left, PSG, has only appeared to become better without him. In the meantime, their archrivals of Barcelona have under Hansi Flick taken their second league title in a row, today with a 2-0 victory on goals by Ferran Torres and Marcus Rashford.

There is no doubt who is the best team in Spain right now. 

AGF Champions

The first time I went to watch a football match was in 1986 in Ikast, when now foregone Ikast FS was playing AGF. AGF won the league that season, and today, 40 years later, AGF have again won the League.

AGF won deservedly as FC Midtjylland, the usual favourites (and who incidentally used to be Ikast), could not keep up with the team from Århus. They had tied to FC Nordsjælland which meant that if AGF defeated Brøndby, they would effectively be champions with one match left.

AGF did what they had to do and won 0-2; surely next week a big celebration in Århus as they get their medals in an unimportant match against Viborg. 

Some Brøndby fans, including myself, may have thought back to the sad day in 2024 when Brøndby just needed to defeat AGF at home to win the league, but AGF won and FC Midtjylland instead became champions, and thought of revenge against AGF. 

Don't mistake me: I am not an AGF fan, but revenge is so old-fashioned and pointless. Instead, I find it refreshing that finally the championship goes to a club that is not a recent money-creation (FC Midtjylland and FC Copenhagen), but is instead one of the old traditional Danish clubs, and comes from the otherwise lovely second city of Denmark, Århus.

So congratulations to AGF, but most of all to all Århusianere, who today have every reason to smile!