Arsenal: A team full of funny sounding names. Routinely pilloried for being anti-English. Emirates. Small budget. Inexperienced and young. A bunch of no names. Beautiful and flowing soccer. The usurpers. The agents of change.
Man Utd: Wayne Rooney, Darren Fletcher. Fish n’ chips. Old Trafford. Money no objection. Savvy and street smart. Mega stars. Powerful and muscular soccer. Salt of the earth. The status quo.
Barack Hussain Obama: Man with a funny sounding name rhyming with Osama. Exotic. Kenyan father, white mother. Small money donors. Inexperienced and young. Articulate and poetic.The usurper. The agent of change.
Hillary Clinton: WASP. The quintessential Washington insider. Mega donors. Experienced and battle tested. Hawkish and trenchant. Electable and establishment. The status quo.
As Arsenal and Man Utd duke it out, we are privy to two teams that are disparate in their character and composition as are Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in their political constellations. At stake, the Premiership and the Presidency, respectively.
Hillary was initially supposed to have run away with the Democratic nomination as polls anointed her. Obama was touted as an also ran. The pundits in the beginning of this season pegged Arsenal as sliding to fifth below Spurs hastening their inevitable demise with Man Utd as an overwhelming favourite to retain the title. But Arsenal stiffened their spine and came up fighting forcing Sir Alex to splutter about foreign players destroying English soccer. Obama laid siege to the status quo and promised a change in DC prompting voters to desert Hillary. She responded with an emotional breakdown replete with tears. We now have a fight. Even Obama and Wenger’s insinuations that Hillary and Sir Alex are playing the ethnic card is uncannily similar.
Anyway, its fun to make a glib connection between US politics and soccer even though in the end it seems as goofy as a dog following its own tail. I bet you the Guardian gurus never quite thought about it this way. We hope to keep you hugely entertained. I am back to share my motley insights into the soccer world and its nether parts.