-
we can breathe now.
YESSSSSS!
According to Vera Pauw herself, Katie’s injury is NOT long term and there’s no fear for her World Cup hopes. Phewwwwwww. (You can read the whole article here)
This makes me so very happy in every way possible. KT deserves to be at the WC and her health is paramount to her country and AWFC as a whole, so this is positive news all around. We’re gonna miss her vs Man City but that’s a given. Her mind, heart and WC hopes is all that matters.
I have to admit I haven’t researched any injury updates regarding Kim Little today, but the reality is that we have a squad without Viv, Beth, Steph, Kim and/or Katie. How absolutely insane is that?
Imagine the men’s squad without Saka, Odegaard, Zinchenko, Partey and Martinelli.
Oh my days…
That is the nature of the sport, though but FFS… to have all missing at once is pretty absurd at any given time but specially at the run in of the season.
Beyond the depleted squad itself, facing Wolfsburg is always tough for sporting reasons but my heart is also jolted. Dom and Jill are 2 of my favorite players ever and if you know me, you know my obsession with the oranjeleeuwinnen. Both Dom and Jill are among the reasons why I love women’s football and I can never forget that. I have also followed their career very closely since they left Arsenal and couldn’t be happier for them. I don’t like to watch them lose. They are stellar players and it’s gonna be a tough ask to beat them, specially away in Germany but there’s something special happening at our club and I believe we can make the finals.
I predicted we could beat Bayern and there’s ZERO doubt in my mind that we can beat them.
Man City next @ 4:30am my time on Sunday.
Can’t bloody wait to set that alarm.
d ❤
Listen to THAT ARSENAL WOMEN PODCAST on:
-
5:37am
I can’t sleep.
Woke up at 5:37am and drank some water and started thinking about the match and my adrenaline shot through the roof.
After some breathing exercises I managed to get my heart rate down and was almost back asleep when the image of Katie McCabe in crutches flashed through my mind. Needless to say I was wide awake seconds later.
I’m not going to talk about the injury or potential time on the sidelines for her and what it means to the club. What I will say, however, is moments like these can be a great lesson in empathy and also regarding what our priorities can be as fans.
What I mean by the latter point is that my first thought was: “KT, please be ok for the World Cup” and I didn’t think how it affects Arsenal. What did you think? Did something similar cross your mind or did you think about AWFC? Very curious.
I’ve said this so many times in my podcast but the way I care about the women’s squad, the way I’m emotionally invested in their well being is unlike anything I’ve ever felt with the men’s game.
Injuries to our players don’t instantly awaken a sense of “how is this going to affect the club” instead, my heart goes out to how the player is feeling, their own hearts, their emotions, their fears and all of that. I know you feel the same way.
I’m also stalling and refreshing my twitter every 6 seconds to see if there are any news or updates. Again, I just want her to be healthy for the World Cup.
It’s what she deserves.
d ❤
Listen to THAT ARSENAL WOMEN PODCAST on:
-
CL Semi-finalists
Wow.
Just wow.
What a display…
The tenacity, the focus, the drive, the will, the injuries.
I don’t think there’s a lot I can say about the match itself because I’m still beyond excited and pumped about what we all just saw.
It was a surreal day starting with the fact that I was a co-host on The Highbury Squad with Sophie Nicolaou and our guest was none other that one of the goats, Shebahn herself. It was just a true joy to speak with her for any and all reasons.
Us 3 were mid show when the updates started coming in and I am glad they were there with me because I would’ve been such a nervous wreck if I had to watch the full match. My wife was with me the whole second half and I’m so glad I got to watch it with her, as we did the Conti Cup Final.
To be in the CL semi finals after a few years is truly special and I have all the confidence in the world that we can reach the finals and even win it.
The caveat to this is Katie McCabe’s foot. Hoping to get good news soon.
d ❤
Listen to THAT ARSENAL WOMEN PODCAST on:
-
Trust your own eyes
A few days ago I went on a slight rant on twitter, as one does. I had been triggered by seeing this overwhelming embrace and positive analysis of a player that I don’t particularly rate highly. The reaction of a lot of people was in my opinion incredibly over the top, but like I just stated: it’s just my opinion.
One of the constants that I try to have as a common thread among all my arsenal women content is positivity. Criticizing a player isn’t positive or constructive and that is not what I’m trying to do here at all. My aim is and was to remind people that read blogs or twitter accounts to trust themselves and their own thoughts and how they view players and matches.
It’s ok to not loooooooove a player. It’s ok to think that we deserve someone better. It’s ok to want them out of the club etc. It’s just an opinion and opinions are neither correct or incorrect. We just have to be nice about it. Sometimes I’m not good at that and I need to be more careful.
I know for a fact there are a lot of people who hold bloggers, journalists and pundits on such a high pedestal that they stop trusting themselves. I know because I am often one of them. I LOVE pundits and bloggers. I absolutely love them. To me, Laura Woods, Shebahn Aherne, Suzy Wrack, Karen Karney, Ian Wright can virtually never be wrong. And that doesn’t mean I always agree with everything they say.
For instance… if Ian Wright thinks X player had a great match and I don’t agree, it doesn’t mean I’m wrong. However, Ian is an expert and has more football knowledge in his toe nail than I could ever posses in my brain so he is probably correct. My point is that I don’t have to change my mind just so that I feel that Ian and I think alike.
We need to have our own, original, personal thoughts, because it can be said that lots of your favorite bloggers, podcasters etc don’t know that much more about football than you. They might be better with words and have tools to analyze matches but none of that means they’re correct. If you agree with them that’s great and not agreeing is great too.
Being good at asking questions about tactics for example does mean that the person who asked the questions knows anything about them.
Believe in your football watching identity and also be open to grow and see things from a different perspective.
Lastly, please know that this is mostly a note to myself 🙂
d ❤
Listen to THAT ARSENAL WOMEN PODCAST on:
-
Blogs were monumental
I’m gonna go ahead and assume that I’m older than most of you. I’m in my 40s (3 months away from being 41 to be precise) and I’ve been an Arsenal fan since 1996ish.
Today is not the day that I tell you why and how I became a fan. However, I’m here today to mention that besides the club itself, the players, Highbury, and all the glory that is associated with our beloved club; one of the reasons I was able to become a fan was due to the blogs that I was able to find.
Back in those days there wasn’t any social media or YouTube, and getting info on the club was really difficult. Especially living in Venezuela, it wasn’t like I could just walk to a pub and watch AFC matches among lots of fans that would teach me about the history of the club. As a matter of fact I don’t remember meeting a fellow Arsenal fan since I moved to Boston for college in 2000.
There were 3 blogs that I grew to love. When I say love I mean obsessed over. They were all very important to me and all had different ways of fulfilling my life and giving me the arsenal related sustenance I needed. All 3 had different styles. Totally different and unique ways of expressing their thoughts, all the inside info the provided and the opinions they shared. I held onto their every word and I am forever grateful to them.
Those blogs were The Arsenal Muse which was written by someone I have not been able to track down… The Arsenal News Review by Myles Palmer and last but not least Le Grove by my dear friend Pete. The latter has one of the best AFC podcasts out there called THE ARSENAL OPINION PODCAST.
You might be asking why the hell I’m sharing all of this, right? Well, the truth is that I don’t know yet. All I know is that I owe a lot to their consistency and effort to keep a blog going. It’s really tough.
I tried a ton of times, trust me.
Maybe I don’t feel I’m that good at writing. Maybe I don’t feel I have much to say or share anything worth typing because I don’t know what comes with growing a blog itself.
All I know is that I love ARSENAL WOMEN and if I can help add something to the landscape, and it comes from a good place, then I feel accomplished.
My podcast aka THAT ARSENAL WOMEN PODCAST is there for you to listen and I will be migrating my twitch stream shows to YouTube very soon.
For those that like reading more that listening, I’m here for you too. And the point of this blog is to also speak my mind regarding things adjacent to the club, the matches and players.
Is this confuses you, let me tell you that I’m confused too.
d ❤
Listen to THAT ARSENAL WOMEN PODCAST on:
-
Welcome
Hi friends,
Thanks for stopping by.
This will be a blog version of my Podcast dedicated to Arsenal Women.
Said podcast is called That Arsenal Women Podcast.
This blog is called That Arsenal Women Blog.
It’s not that I’m trying to be super funny and witty, it’s that I didn’t know what else to call it. That’s what it is though.
Expect very subjective and feelings based opinions.
If you’re looking for stats and deep match analysis I am here to tell you that this is not the place for that. I’m not that smart nor do I know that much about tactics.
I appreciate you understanding.
Thank you.
d ❤
Listen to THAT ARSENAL WOMEN PODCAST on:
A very subjective look into AWFC 