It is a chilly Wednesday evening at Highbury. Arsenal, though, have warmed up the crowd with a scintillating display and are tearing Bayer Leverkusen to shreds as the legendary clock ticks down towards another Gunners victory.
Wanting to leave the Arsenal fans with something to really drool over on the way home, however, one player in particular picks the ball up, squirms his way around two players and chips the goalkeeper, not far off his line, from outside the box.
And it was pretty much from that moment on that I fell in love with Dennis Bergkamp.
I did not see much on my one and only visit to Highbury, what with my tiny legs and all, but I distinctly remember being in awe of that piece of genius displayed before me. I was walking in a Bergkamp wonderland.
The man I have idolised since that night gets a well-deserved statue unveiled at the venue of his career-ending testimonial tomorrow - which gives me a great opportunity to reminisce about what made Dennis Bergkamp an Arsenal legend and my favourite player of all time.
I barely began to crawl as Arsenal pulled off what had seemed to be the surprise deal of the decade, when Inter Milan 'flop' Bergkamp joined the club.
As Arsenal legends tend to do so, Bergkamp started slowly *cough* Ozil *cough* but eventually, 'The Iceman' found his feet in English football to become one of the league's greatest-ever players.
Not only as a goalscorer - Dennis was seemingly able to deliver and apply the right skill at the right time, all for the benefit of his team-mates. He was one of those players anyone could link up with - Thierry Henry continued the telekinetic partnership he had with Ian Wright before him with ease.
Dennis was a master of the extraordinary. Curling shots became his trademark. He saw passes no-one else could see. He showcased the art of improvisation at its very, very best. How else would he have scored THAT goal against Newcastle (just three days after Leverkusen)?
He was very much a 'THAT' kind of player. The kind of player you would talk about and say "did you see THAT goal, or THAT pass or THAT skill?", like THAT skill against Juventus or THAT pass against Celta Vigo or even THOSE goals against Leicester City.
Or THAT performance against Everton - goodness me.
All this is pretty hard to believe when you consider he was not the most prolific of goalscorers - he only reached 20 goals at Arsenal once - when we won the double in '98. To be fair to Dennis, when you are tallying up against Henry, your efforts are going to look miniscule - even when you end up scoring 120 goals for Arsenal - something only 10 others have eclipsed.
But what made him different from the Henrys and the Wrights was that you would go to Highbury for the privilege of seeing a true master at work. And whether that was creating through-balls for others or literally chipping in with a few of his own, whatever the end result, the satisfaction of witnessing such a genius first-hand would be second-to-none.
So as he takes the ferry (right?) across the North Sea for his appearance at the Emirates Stadium tomorrow, he can expect a rapturous welcome similar to the one the entire team received on Wednesday night.
Let's just hope the outcome isn't the same, for God's -- I mean, Dennis' sake.
Come On You Reds!
Comments
Post a Comment