Taking in Arsenal/FC Porto at the Emirates

AP Photo/Sean Dempsey

Fine, I admit it. I’ve laughed at scarves, made fun of people who wear them, and generally think they look really dumb/preppy. And yet on Tuesday night I found myself as one of probably 30,000 people strolling into the Emirates Stadium sporting that particular clothing article with an Arsenal/FC Porto half-and-half pattern, thinking I was pretty much The Man. When you see all these people doing it, it somehow becomes extremely cool (yea, OK, I was kind of a follower in high school).

The purchase of that scarf came following a stroll around the area (which I thought had a really nice, low-key vibe to it) and some fish and chips to tide my appetite. My buddy Andy and I then had the necessary pre-game pint with Arsenal supporters in a pub before heading into the stadium.

The Emirates is the anti-White Hart Lane, as I quickly found out. While Tottenham’s stadium employs the ragged, ordinary warehouse-looking style on the outside, the Gunners’ home is new-age, flashy and just flat-out cool. Nothing wrong with it, just completely different, more modern and a huge money-maker thanks to the 60,000-plus people it can fit.

While I liked it, my thoughts went back to something an Arsenal fan I met at a pub a couple weeks ago said – that Highbury (the previous Arsenal stadium until 2006) literally felt like your house when you walked in. This one is a change, and I’m sure it’s one that not everyone embraces. The atmosphere in the game itself was more a tiny bit more reserved than I expected, and the big screens, music and PA announcers took away from the experience just a little in my opinion.

Seat 865, in Row 29 of Section 122 sits exactly one row from the back wall of the entire stadium, as I found out. Which is why you’ve gotta feel sorry for the poor guy who sat in the ONE seat in Row 30 during the second half, his back against that wall. Ha, last row sucker.

I loved the seats because they were right behind one of the goals, so I could see all of the runs each team was making and appreciate the spacing.

It was a little surprising that the crowd didn’t completely fill the stadium for this Champions League matchup with Porto, but then again those are a lot of seats to fill. I was lucky enough to find myself next to two potentially drunk Arsenal supporters, including one who insisted on trying to yell out a new chant every two seconds. It didn’t matter that they made little sense in the context of the game – by God he was going to create some atmosphere even if the back wall was the only one listening.

I couldn’t see the open part of the stadium from my seats (Andy got Row 1, lucky son of a gun), but when I did venture down to take a look, it was quite a sight to see the entire structure with the lit-up field below us.

And the massacre on that green grass was ugly, as Arsenal came into a game it really needed to win but played without the pressure and tenseness that usually accompanies such expectations. Porto helped out plenty by allowing the Arsenal attack   t  h  i  s      m   u   c  h   room all over the field. With Arsenal’s usual great spacing, this gave Theo Walcott tons of real estate on the right to use his speed and Cesc Fabregas a lot of space in the middle. But the biggest issue early on for Porto was that they gave Emmanuel Adebayor a ton of space to operate in the air and collect the long aerials that the midfield sent his way. Eventually that caught up to Porto when Adebayor got space on the endline to set up the first of Robin van Persie’s two goals and then deposited a header himself into the net from a corner on a semi-lucky bounce off the turf.

The second half saw more of the same, as van Persie claimed his second and Adebayor got a penalty.

For myself, I stood up after the opening goal only to have my loud-mouth friend to my right wrap his arm around me and start dancing around while yelling something random, so I had to roll with that a little bit. When the second goal came I managed to brace myself as the same events unfolded. The only other notable crowd action of the second half was the poor Row 30 guy getting told by the security guy to sit down. The LAST row of the stadium, and you can’t let this guy stand up? Get a life, buddy.

Oh, and there was the necessary “Are you Tottenham in disguise?” chant.

In all, another great experience, although I’ll be honest and admit that I thought White Hart Lane was more homey and had a little better atmosphere during their UEFA Cup game a couple weeks ago. But don’t worry, I’m a big fan of the Emirates, too, and plan to be back for many games before the end of my stay here – scarf and all.