Why Arsenal?

Honestly, that is a good question (not to pat myself on the back)! 

I don't come from a lineage of Soccer obsessed relatives. My dad played a bit in high school and my mom doesn't have an athletic bone in her body, so it isn't like I was destined to become infatuated with the sport. It kind of just happened. 

I could go on for hours about my upbringing with the sport and how I became hooked, but that would require me to write a short novel and at the moment, I don't have that time!

Fast forwarding to my teenage years...

With soccer being the only sport I played, it was only natural that I started to become interested in watching it. Being that my dad was a Cowboys and Yankees fan (I know...terrible combo), soccer was never on in my house. It wasn't something he ever watched, even though he claimed he was a fan of the Italian National Team due to our family's Italian roots. This forced me to do my own research in the form of deep diving YouTube compilations. I would scroll through hours and hours of clips that would come up from my search of "greatest soccer highlights." Through those searches, I came across some guy named Thierry Henry. I was immediately awestruck. The dribbling, the technique, the arrogance - it was like watching something you had never seen before in your life. Arrogance tends to have a bad connotation, someone who thinks their sh*t doesn't stink. Henry's arrogance was different. He knew he was the best player on the pitch, but he didn't need to tell you. He was just going to go about his business and show you. I absolutely loved it. 

Finding out about Thierry led me straight to Arsenal and The Invincibles - a team so good, that they had gone an entire season without losing a game! A team so good, that they had done something that was never done before in England's top flight. A team SO good, that they named the entire club after the Manager....oh wait...they definitely didn't do that. I am happy to know though that I wasn't the only one who thought Arsenal was named after Arsene Wenger! 

This was all the icing on the cake for me. I knew which team I had to start supporting. It was always going to be The Arsenal. 

That Christmas, which was in 2010, I asked my parents for an Arsenal jersey. I don't think I asked for anything else that year. I just wanted one thing and one thing only. I remember seeing that package once I ripped the wrapping paper off. It was like my parents had just given me a golden ticket. I couldn't comprehend what I was about to open. 

The funny thing about me asking for an Arsenal Jersey was that I had no idea who any of the players were and nor did my parents. It was basically just a guess on their part! When I opened that package, the distinct red jersey with white around the collar stood out like a sore thumb. When I turned it around, I saw the number 8 on the back and a name that read Nasri. There it was...my first Arsenal jersey.. and the first player I ever became obsessed with. 

That jersey changed my whole life. It sounds a bit weird reading that sentence back, but it couldn't be more true. From then on, I couldn't get enough of this football club (I even started calling it football)! Fast forward 16 years... and here we are. Still the same Arsenal obsessed kid, but the thing is that I'm not a kid anymore. I'm 30, I've been married to my beautiful wife for almost 4 years, and we are expecting our first child this Summer. My life has changed drastically over those 16 years, but there has always been one constant. That constant is my love for Arsenal Football Club - and that will not change until the day that I die.