A Famous Night in Madrid. A Famous Day Out in New York.

"How many people could be there at 3pm on a Wednesday?"

I had two and a half pints on the day, because I spilled the third one all over a guy’s back. I apologized; he didn’t care in the slightest. After all, Bukayo Saka had just scored at the Bernabeu to destroy the European champions.

By then, it was euphoria in O’Hanlon’s. Bedlam. It was bouncing from the start, to be fair. When I left my house an hour before kickoff, my girlfriend asked why so early. “How many people could be there at 3pm on a Wednesday?” 25 minutes before showtime, the folks in red and white were piled up outside the Irish pub on 14th Street in Lower Manhattan. At capacity. You could see them through the doorway up the stairs, past the mass of humanity packed in under the low-slung pressed-tin ceiling. Covering the entire three windows to the left of the doorway was a giant red cannon-clad flag. Inside, the songs rang out.

We won the league at Anfield,
We won it at the Lane,
Stamford Bridge, Old Trafford,
No one can say the same…

It’s a great tune, the best that Arsenal fans have cooked up in years, and yet it’s always concentrated the mind — at least for me — on the “past” bit of “past glories” and how I missed them. I came on board as a supporter in 2006, in that autumn after the World Cup, still just months after this club featured in the Champions League final. They’d won the league without losing a match two years before that. Surely, it was only a matter of time until the North Londoners returned to the mountaintop. And then the next 18 years happened.

On Wednesday, I marveled at how many Yankee Gooners I met that had lived similar experiences to mine: fans of 12 years, 15, enough to have been dragged through the misery of the nearly seasons and others nowhere close, the slow decline of the Wenger years and the eighth-place nadir, the time when Arsenal became a kind of high-class laughingstock. Considering when the game really took off on these shores, it’s been something like the median, the average, the default experience for the American Arsenal fan, and it still echoes even in this new era of title races and £100 million signings. The banter merchants and professional trolls often talk about the club as if it’s a joke to finish second in the Premier League and — last season — lose to Bayern Munich in a Champions League quarterfinal. They almost need the Arsenal to be a punchline.

And then came this quarterfinal, and Real Madrid, and the 3-0. And then came Wednesday’s second leg.

The festivities at O’Hanlon’s began with a raucous rendition of “North London Forever,” as Cristiano behind the bar leapt on top of it brandishing a giant flag with Saka’s face on it. When it was done and the game feed came on, everybody around me started bouncing in place, on the knife edge, minds filled with “the black magic of the Bernabeu” and all that talk of remontada from the Madridistas in the lead-up. (Boy, did they talk.) Even at 3-0 up on aggregate, it was tough to sit still.

But this is a different team now, a different club. “Mikel Arteta’s army” isn’t just the supporters. There are hard-nosed, well-drilled warriors on the pitch. It’s a team in the steely Spaniard’s image. They aren’t pushovers anymore, they won’t be bullied, and with nights like these they add mental strength to their undeniable physical dominance.

They managed the game through the first half, when the only points of stress were two questionable penalty incidents. As Saka went up to take the first, we all chittered in the dark of the subterranean pub in mid-afternoon: Shouldn’t Martin take it? Shouldn’t Declan? When Bukayo missed, things went quiet for the first time, and the queasiness really set in when Madrid were awarded a soft penalty of their own. But once it was scratched off and the specter of the black magic faded, normal service resumed. And then came the glory.

Martin Ødegaard, oft maligned this season, stitched together some combination play above the Blancos’ box and found Mikel Merino, looking nearly as at home in these environs as Thomas Partey. The Spaniard spotted Saka making the kind of diagonal run in behind that Arsenal have needed just a bit more of all year, and then there it was, suspended in time: Saka latched onto it and succeeded where he’d failed with the penalty, deftly clipping over Thibaut Courtois.

It was a dagger in the heart of the beast, and the scrum in O’Hanlon’s went ballistic. Beer went flying, people were jumping all over each other. I hugged three different people I’d never seen before in my life. I haven’t had the privilege of seeing the team live in such a big game, but it felt like the stories I’ve heard about that Lucas Torreira goal in the North London derby. The release of stress and tension, the borderline manic behavior, the near-disbelief at how high this roller coaster goes. Arsenal were 1-0 up at the Bernabeu, just like in Thierry’s time. Arsenal were 4-0 up on aggregate.

They were battering Real Madrid so badly that they soon felt it was only polite to give their hosts a goal, which David Raya and William Saliba conspired to provide. But even that did not dampen the mood, such was Arsenal’s sure-footedness in this massive fixture, and as the minutes ticked down, the songs got louder and louder. We sang our hearts out in that little bar in Manhattan, delighted and slightly deranged, and it was in the middle of a song that the Arsenal struck again.

Allez Allez, Allez….Allez, Allez, Allez….

Gabriel Martinelli sprinted through and lashed it home. He put the Blancos down, finished the job, sealed it up, and then it was bedlam again. 5-1. Destruction.

We all spilled out into the street, pyrotechnics cracking off briefly and crimson flares smoking up the sidewalk in the middle — well, near the end — of a Wednesday workday. The songs continued, war stories were swapped, and we all did our own kind of standing ovation as the curtain dropped on a glorious eight days for the Arsenal. No matter what happens from here, the whole football world just witnessed this club in a new era. Nobody’s laughing now, except some folks a few pints deep on 14th Street.

———————————

If you haven’t already, check out our CATHEDRALS series with features on Goodison Park and Anfield!