By Chris Toronyi
Have we fallen in love with the little things? Have we been programmed to look the other way when we don't win the win the league? I say this because a friend (@goonerathena) tweeted Arshavin’s goal against Barca last night. It gave me the chills, and made me think. We of course didn’t win that tie, but man, it felt good. And nor did we win the league that year, but that memory is amazing.
I mean we can't win it every year, so why not look at the smaller successes during the season. Is 4th that bad? In some respects it's horrible, in others it's an achievement. It's easy to be negative, it's harder to accept what some say is failure. Should we be in the run for the title every year? Of course.
I guess what I’m saying is we can't win best picture every year.
Look at Martin Scorsese, one of the best directors in the business, and he couldn't get close to an Oscar until he won for Best Director for 'The Departed'. Were people saying he wasn't good enough? No. They were saying he wasn't the best of the best that year. And that’s OK. He still made some of the most iconic movies of our time.
I know I'm comparing a subjective outcome, the Oscars, to one that has a defined end like the season, but what I'm trying to say is that there isn't anything wrong with celebrating small things - celebrating a nomination for best director, which Martin Scorsese has been seven-times with that one win. How can you not celebrate a nomination?
But if we only looked at his Best Directing win for 'The Departed' we'd have overlooked his directing nominations in 'Gangs of New York', 'The Aviator', 'Taxi Driver' and 'Raging Bull' to name of few. Finishing 4th, 3rd or 2nd is an achievement. There are rewards to those places and feelings towards those pictures. If we didn’t overlook our final standings over the past couple of years, we would have thrown the away win at Milan out the window, shipped those 5-2 wins over sp*rs to Uncle Harry’s house and who could forget Arshavin’s goal against Barca - which has been mentioned and cried over.
And look at some of the work he got out of Robert De Niro, Leonardo DiCaprio and Daniel Day Lewis. Absolutely jaw dropping.
All were great theater. All provided amazing performances. All were memorable.
Am I right, Marty?
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'Stateside Gooner' Chris Toronyi is a longtime Arsenal supporter and the host of The Arsenal America podcast, available every week at ArsenalAmerica.com and on iTunes at "Arsenal America Podcast." You can read more of Chris' thoughts on Twitter.
The views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect those of Arsenal Football Club or Arsenal Broadband Ltd.
Copyright 2024 The Arsenal Football Club Limited. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to www.arsenal.com as the source.
