Wednesday, September 25, 2019

Classifying the Emirates Era

This past Sunday, the Yankees, the Giants, the Red Bulls and Arsenal all won. Going back to the founding of the MetroStars/Red Bulls in 1996, that had, literally, never happened before.

The Mets also won, giving the New York Tri-State Area 4 wins in 1 day. However, New York City FC only managed a tie, and the Jets, as you would expect even if they weren't playing the Patriots in Foxboro, lost.

The Sundayj results: Yankees 8, Toronto Blue Jays 3; Mets 6, Cincinnati Reds 3; Giants 32, Tampa Bay Buccaneers 31; Red Bulls 2, Philadelphia Union 0; FC Dallas 1, NYCFC 1; and New England Patriots 30, Jets 14.

Someday, I'm going to have to do a post that reveals something I do not yet know: The most wins the Tri-State Area got on a single day. Surely, there has to be one where there was 5 or more -- most likely, during the NBA or NHL Playoffs, with the Yankees and/or Mets also winning.

The last time the Yankees, Red Bulls and Arsenal all won on the same day was 6 years ago, on May 4, 2013: The Yankees beat the Oakland Athletics 4-2, the Red Bulls beat the Columbus Crew 1-0, and Arsenal beat Queens Park Rangers, also 1-0.

Yesterday, Arsenal played Nottingham Forest in the League Cup, a tournament that is practically meaningless for teams Arsenal's size. Forest are in the 2nd division of English soccer, so this would mean more to them. But their fans would like them to focus on league play, in the hopes of getting promoted to the top flight, the Premier League.

It was scoreless until late in the 1st half, and only "One-Nil to The Arsenal" late, before the kids broke out and made it a 5-0 win.

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Among Arsenal fans, a.k.a. Gooners, there are many debates, including who is a team "legend" -- and who is a "Judas," a traitor.

Here are the players of the Emirates Stadium era, 2006 to the present, and how they rank. To save time, I haven't put the various accent marks where needed.

* Team Legends: Aaron Ramsey, Mesut Ozil. That's it: 2 guys in 13 full seasons. But 2 epic guys.

* Respected, but not quite at the level of Legend: Kolo Toure, Gael Clichy (both holdovers from the last years at Highbury, including the 2003-04 "Invincible" Premier League title season), Tomas Rosicky, Theo Walcott, Bacary Sagna, Kieran Gibbs, Jack Wilshere, Wojciech Szczesny, Laurent Koscielny, Per Mertesacker, Mikel Arteta, Olivier Giroud, Nacho Monreal, Santi Cazorla, Mathieu Flamini (the 2nd time around); and, still here, and could work their way up, Hector Bellerin, Alexandre Lacazette, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.

* Briefly Here, But Briefly Vital: Yossi Benayoun, Kim Kallstrom, Yaya Sanogo.

* Good, But Not Yet at the Required Level: Calum Chambers, Rob Holding, Ainsley Maitland-Niles, Sead Kolasinac, Sokratis Papastathopoulos, Lucas Torreira, Bernd Leno, Matteo Guendouzi, Eddie Nketiah.

* Tolerated (because they helped us win): Lukasz Fabianski, Nicklas Bendtner, David Ospina, Danny Welbeck, Shkodran Mustafi, Granit Xhaka.

* Good, But Not Good Enough, and Gone: Alex Song, Johan Djourou, Emmanuel Eboue, Jeremie Aliadiere, Eduardo da Silva, Vito Mannone, Andrey Arshavin, Francis Coquelin, Thomas Vermaelen, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Carl Jenkinson, Joel Campbell, Lukas Podolski, Serge Gnabry (who got much better upon moving to Germany), Mathieu Debuchy, Mohamed Elneny, Alex Iwobi, Henrikh Mkhitaryan.

* Bad Players, but not Bad Guys: Abou Diaby, Philippe Senderos, Denilson, Manuel Almunia, Justin Hoyte, his brother Gavin Hoyte, Carlos Vela, Mikael Silvestre, Sebastien Squillaci, Marouane Chamakh, Emmanuel Frimpong, Andre Santos, Gervinho, Gabriel Paulista, Stephan Lichtsteiner.

* Momentaries (didn't play enough to be fairly judged): Sol Campbell (a legend in his 1st tenure with Arsenal), Julio Baptista, Mart Poom, Matthew Connolly, Mark Randall, Armand Traore, Lassana Diarra, Henri Lansbury, Fran Merida, Nacer Barazite, Kerrea Gilbert, Amaury Bischoff, Rui Fonte, Mark Randall, Paul Rogers, Jay Simpson, Armand Traore, Kyle Bartley, Thomas Cruise, Craig Eastmond, Jay Emmanuel-Thomas, Gilles Sunu, Sanchez Watt, Park Chu-Young, Ryo Miyaichi, Martin Angha, Thomas Eisfeld, Jernade Meade, Ignasi Miquel, Nico Yennaris, Emiliano Viviano, Gedion Zelalem, Krystian Bielik, Chuba Akpom, Isaac Hayden; Lucas Perez, Jeff Reine-Adelaide, Takuma Asano, Cohen Bramall, Denis Suarez, and, so far, Emiliano Martinez, Konstantinos Mavropanos, Charlie Gilmour, Zech Medley, Julio Pleguezuelo, Joe Willock, Bukayo Saka, Kieran Tierney, Dani Ceballos, Nicholas Pepe, Reiss Nelson, Emile Smith Rowe, Matt Macey and Gabriel Martinelli.

* Schmucks, who had a good thing going on, and were dumb to choose to leave, but not really traitors: Mathieu Flamini (the 1st time around), Aleksandr Hleb, Samir Nasri.

* Traitors: Emmanuel Adebayor, Robin van Persie. I had originally put Ashley Cole in this category, but he left Arsenal during the 2006 transition from Highbury to the Emirates, so he doesn't fit here.

* Double Agents, who came from other clubs with something to gain from Arsenal losing: Chelsea players William Gallas, Petr Cech and David Luiz; and Barcelona players Cesc Fabregas and Alexis Sanchez.

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