By Chris Toronyi
As a fan of sports teams we want our cabinets full of trophies and banners and cups and maybe a ribbon. But as we all know that's not the case for a lot of teams. Most teams in fact.
Teams go years, maybe even decades without an award for their Championship play. My Mets haven't won the World Series since 1986. Sadly, we Mets fans just passed the 25th Anniversary of that title. Yes, there have been division titles in-between, but do I care about "winning" the National League East? Or even winning the National League? In all honesty I don't. I want a Championship trophy.
I remember these "winnng" seasons as something to "remember", but you won't find a single article of clothing in my closet that parades these acknowledgements. It seems these division titles, National League Champions are band-aids for teams that are unable to deliver a Champion of the sport.
That's how I see the FA and Capital One Cup. Band-aids for the sport, masking big spending and geography so teams can feel like they're apart of this so-called "winning". They're nice to have. Great advertisement for the league and generate revenues as well. But for me they're not the trophy I want.
Now for some teams, that's all they have, all they can offer their fans, but for others there are bigger competitions, bigger objectives. Like us at Arsenal Football Club.
We're not satisfied with winning the NL East or the National League crown, we all about the World Series. The Premier League crown, the Champions League. High expections? Yes. Of course. We're Arsenal Football Club.
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Previous entries:
July 6: Ant-anti-football
June 28: New additions
June 20: Failing chemistry
June 13: Summer school
May 8: Not the time to get ill
May 2: End of season variables
April 24: Making a point
April 18: Different kinds of tired
April 12: Emotionally spent
March 29: No doubt
March 23: An amazing run
March 13: Mad Men, mad season
March 6: Rush of emotion
February 29: Pride and joy
February 14: An evolving Arsenal
February 22: Anger is beautiful
February 14: An evolving Arsenal
February 8: A welcome display
February 1: The value of value
January 31: FA Cup magic
January 24: We have to be supportive
January 19: This is a massive game
'Stateside Gooner' Chris Toronyi is a longtime Arsenal supporter and the host of The Arsenal America podcast, available every Thursday evening at ArsenalAmerica.com. 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.
