Arsenal vs West Ham: Adventure of a First- Timer

On the 9^th of August, a close friend of mine invited me over to his place to watch a football (or soccer, whichever is appropriate for you) game with him. The match is between the teams Arsenal, which my friend is a huge fan of, and West Ham United. 

Now I am not a big fan of football, usually being the “defender” that never gets the ball whenever I do play with my friends, let alone watching football. Usually from what I recall here in Malaysia most games start past midnight which means I am either asleep or too tired to watch 22 men running around after a ball. But for this specific game it starts at 8.30pm as it is one of the first games being played of the night. Against my better judgement and with a slight bit of curiosity, I took my friend’s offer and went over to his house at 7pm to watch the game. We had our dinner beforehand and then made ourselves comfortable for the game. During the start of the match where the players from both teams lined up and started shaking hands with people, my friend explained to me the details of the game. The match is being held in the Emirates Stadium which is the home of Arsenal, giving them the ‘Home advantage’ of having the crowd support whereas West Ham is the Away team. He also told me that Arsenal had recently bought a goalkeeper from Chelsea (Hey! Another team name that I'm familiar with) named Petr Cech and this will be his first match playing for his new team.

And with the start of the first half of the match, I realised that there is a whole different side of my friend that I have never seen before. Within 5 minutes of the game, a West Ham player gets a yellow card and is followed suit with another yellow card to yet another West Ham player a few minutes later. My friend got mouthy and making jokes about them. Wasn't very funny but I laughed all the same. Nothing really happened from then on till the 30th minute. Arsenal went on the offensive and got close to scoring some goals against West Ham. During this time, my friend was sitting at the edge of the sofa, screaming encouragements to the Arsenal players and then proceeded to scream obscenities at them when it didn't work out. At this point, I found it more entertaining to watch my friend watch football instead of the game itself.

(Image credits: Perform Group)

And so comes my favorite part: 40 minutes in the game. After so much talking about Arsenal and about other things I can't remember anymore, he out of nowhere said "stupid Arsenal, can't score goals. It's just gonna be 0 - 0 the whole game" right as it was nearly going to be 42 minutes into the game. The timing was perfect. As he uttered those last words of the sentence, the West Ham player Kouyate (I had to look up his name online) made a header and scored against Arsenal making it the first goal of the match. 

Header from Kouyate past Petr Cech (Image credits: BBC Sports)

There was a 30 second silence where me and my friend just stared at the screen stunned. The sheer irony (if you can't tell already, I really do enjoy the suffering of my friend here) of the situation is just simply amazing. After recovering from his shock, my friend just turns to me and says the words "I give up." I couldn't help but burst out laughing. And the first half of the match ends with Arsenal getting another failed shot at a goal.

The obligatory celebration (Image credits: Dailymail)

From then on, it was downhill for Arsenal and my friend's hopes. Every attempt to score by Arsenal doesn't connect and my friend gets more flustered with more screaming at the screen.

Arsenal's manager defeated, just like my friend. (Image credits: Telegraph UK)

10 minutes after the second half of the game started, another goal by West Ham this time by Mauro Zarate. At this point, my friend just cupped his face in both his hands and made sad sounds (much like a whale). I tried to hide the smile that was breaking out to no avail. Nothing more interesting than that happened, for me anyways, after that since my friend already lost interest in the game. What a way to start a football season. There was the headbutt between two players that made the game stop for a moment while medical personnel checked on them to see if they are alright but like I said, nothing else interesting.

With the game wrapping up 5 minutes past the 90 minute mark, my friend gave his opinion on the game. He said that the reason for the goals against the team was that the defenders and the new goalkeeper were not well coordinated together and he admitted that West Ham played well against Arsenal.

What I have experienced here in watching a live football match with a friend really opened my eyes to what a game of football really is. The way I see it, its not really just about the game where you watch 22 men run around chasing a ball to score points but its more about the emotions that fans have when they see their favorite teams play the game. The joy and exhilaration when they win or the disappointment and frustration when they lose. Maybe that is what makes football what the fans call The Beautiful Game.

I do apologise for such a long post. As people who watch more than 90 minutes of football, I'm sure this shouldn't be much of a hassle. I hope you all enjoy reading about my experience watching a match of football with my friend as I enjoyed watching said game.

West Ham the Giant Slayer.

Image credits : goal.com


Having won 1-2 against Manchester City in the Etihad stadium last night, it is fair to say that it looks like that this West Ham this season is the giant slayer. The win propelled them into the second of the league table at the moment and if they are able to keep up playing at this level as well as staying on top of their game against the smaller clubs, they could have a real chance at finishing high. It is still a long way to go for them and they have yet to face Manchester United, Tottenham or Everton. They have won away against Liverpool and Arsenal during the first few weeks of the league. My prediction is that they will keep on being the surprise of the season.

Chelsea emerged the only English winning side as Arsenal lost.

Mourinho's Chelsea won a comfortable 4-0 win at home against the Israeli team Maccabi Tel Aviv. They might not be the toughest adversary for Chelsea but they still won. Instead, Arsenal who are playing against Dynamo Zagreb, a croatian side, lost. I think it was no doubt Arsene Wenger's fault as the frenchman decided to not play many first team players. It could be argued that he did so because he wanted to rest the important players as he is going to come up against Chelsea in the premier league or that he simply wanted to avoid injuring Arsenal's key players such as Theo Walcott or Alexis Sanchez.

SECOND BOOOKING : Olivier Giroud must have seen it coming as he commited a ridiculous foul.

To top it all off, it was none other than Giroud that was sent off at the match. It's as if he wanted people to criticize him more. I feel like this man keeps on finding new ways to make me write bad things about him! Olivier Giroud, sort yourself out son!

James Rodriguez is a pivotal player for RM.

Image credits : mmcnews

When the Colombian midfielder first signed for Real Madrid, he had a lot of doubters going his way. I have to admit, I used to be one of them. He was incredible during the world cup but I don't think that this man will actually be the a key player for the team. He had a lot of burden especially when fans blamed his arrival as the cause of Angel Di Maria's departure to Manchester United. But I have to say that James proved me wrong! He was actually very talented. He had the body balance, the technique and certainly the eye of a maestro. I would say he is like a mixture of Frank Lampard and Paul Scholes.

This season I am fully confident of his roles in the upcoming campaign of Real Madrid and as their fan I do as well hope that this season we are going to witness James lifting some silverware.

Di Maria and Cavani scores against Malmo.

Image credits : goal.com

PSG had the honor of hosting FC Malmo for their quest of getting their first Champions League trophy. Much to the liking of their main man Zlatan Ibrahimovic, since FC Malmo was his first club. He said that it wasn't simply coincidence, he felt like it was fate that he had to face his former club. At the game last night, the Argentinian, Angel Di Maria scored the first goal just in the fourth minute of the game. Manchester United would have been bitter to see Di Maria performing so well at his new club. The second one was scored by Edinson Cavani after a few minutes of the second half.  Cavani wasn't looking very lively at the game, but his headed goal surely sealed the three points for the host.

UNLUCKY NOT TO SCORE : Ibrahimovic was running rampant the whole game yet fails to bag one himself.

The swedish striker seems to be disappointed after the match. It seems that he wasn't quite satisfied with his performance because he fails to score a goal. He had some chances to finish himself, but he wasn't fortunate enough to be putting the balls in the back of the net. I believe that this season PSG has the potential to go far in the competition, they have a solid team and they are certainly not to be written off. The only thing is, I don't feel like the French league is cut-out enough for them to be performing great in the later stages of the Champions League. The transition between playing against a Ligue 1 club to another European powerhouse will be hard for them. I guess we'll see for ourselves how will they fare against the big boys.

PSV shocks Manchester United.

Image credits : goal.com

Manchester United fans are seem to be shocked from the comeback last night at Eindhoven. The former PSV man, Memphis Depay scored the first goal of the game. The goal was quickly responded by PSV just before half-time and eventually they managed to turn things around Manchester United. To be fair, Manchester United has their chances but they just simply did not deliver. Not surprising really, since they don't have a great player up front. The only players they have is Wayne Rooney who is probably past his prime and the new boy Anthony Martial.

AND TO MAKE IT WORSE : Luke Shaw is forced to leave the pitch as he was injured.

Realistically speaking, there is a very slim chance for Manchester United to win the Champions League. Yes, football has a few surprises but I just don't see it with the way Manchester United is really playing. Certainly not with this squad, and not with this coach. In my opinion, they should let go of Louis Van Gaal and appoint the currently unemployed italian, Carlo Ancelotti.

Alvaro Morata the man for the big occasion yet again.

Image credits : telegraph.co.uk

Scoring crucial goals at the big stages seems to be a new habit picked up by the youngster. The spaniard scored the winning goal of the game from outside the box in the 2-1 away game against the Manchester City team, who are looking very promising in their domestic competition. On the last season of the Champions League, Morata scored in both legs in the semi-finals against former club Real Madrid and scored a goal in the Final against the current champions FC Barcelona.

NOT A GREAT NIGHT : Raheem Sterling failed to turn up against Juventus.

It is Juventus' first win in England since 1996. The first goal of the game was an own goal by Chiellini but the team certainly bounced back and succeeded at turning things around. The equalizer was scored by the Croatian striker, Mario Mandzukic. Alvaro Morata will certainly find increasing interest from other clubs, and if he keeps on performing at this rate, Real Madrid will certainly come back at him and snatch him back with the inserted buy-back clause in the player's contract. Who knows? Maybe some other big European clubs will be keeping an eye on him.