All or Nothing: Arsenal
Once a Gunner, Always a Gunner
I don’t know about you, but I love football! It’s my favourite sport and whenever I can, I’m watching a match. However, I’m also a huge nerd who loves series, games, comics, anime and pop culture in general. So much so that I created this blog to talk about these subjects. But as much as I love football and other sports, it’s not my idea to talk about them here on Medium. However, I decided to circumvent the system so that I could write about sports, with the excuse that it’s about series. This was the loophole I wanted to talk a bit about La Pelota and why not start with my favourite European team: Arsenal!
Information and Synopsis
All or Nothing: Arsenal is an original sports documentary series from Amazon Prime Video as part of the All or Nothing label. The series takes a behind-the-scenes look at Arsenal’s entire 2021–22 season, which began with one of its worst starts in Premier League history, but improved until it ended with a place in the 2022–23 UEFA Europa League. The series is narrated by Oscar-winning actor Daniel Kaluuya, who was born in London and is a Gunners fan.
As I’ve said before, Arsenal are the European team I always cheer for when I watch them, so when the series was announced I was obviously delighted. Not just because I like them, but also to find out about the club behind the scenes. It was just a shame that it took place at a time when the team wasn’t in the Champions League, as they were rebuilding after years of the nostalgic Arsene Wenger era. It was great to see the club’s relationship with the fans, not least because the Gunners started the season very badly and then improved a lot. So we saw fans change from water to wine, starting with banners calling for Arteta’s departure and ending with lines of “Trust the Process” and singing songs to the manager and the players.
One thing I really like about these series is seeing the players’ side of things, and there are lots of interviews with them talking about what they think, how they feel, what they expect from the season and the club, etc. Some of the highlights include Kieran Tierney showing his routine and how he organises his diet; the adaptation of Brazilians Gabriel Magalhães and Martinelli; the expectations of English gems Bukayo Saka and Emile Smith Rowe; the relationship of companionship and rivalry between goalkeepers Bernd Leno and Aaron Ramsdale; the arrival and impact of Norwegian Martin Ødegaard on the team; and, for me, the most interesting part of the series was that of Swiss midfielder Granit Xhaka. He was a player much criticised by the fans, and rightly so, but in the series you realise that he gives a lot of himself for the team and that he deserved a second chance.
I imagine that of all the subjects related to Arsenal’s 20/21 season, one of the things that the fans most wanted to be covered was the backstory of Arteta’s shenanigans with Gabonese player Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. He was the team’s star player, and despite playing badly, he was dropped from the team. And although we knew it was for behaviour, it was always very confusing to understand exactly what he had done. Fortunately, the series has explained a little of what this situation was like for us. I would say that the only thing that bothered me was that the series focussed on this for far too long. The impression is that almost half of the documentary was just about that. I think it could have explored other things, such as Arteta’s tactics.
And we come to him, the protagonist of this series, Mikel Arteta. The footballing world looks to him as one of Guardiola’s disciples who have succeeded, along with Xavi, now at Barcelona. And because he was Pep’s offspring, we always imagined him to be a guy with more cerebral tactics like his master, but in the series we see a coach with more emotive methods. With speeches and words, in which the intentions seemed to be more to give the players the confidence to do what they know within a game idea, rather than explaining why they have to do things in a specific way within a specific tactic, as Guardiola seems to do. I thought it was nice to see that he has his individuality in the way he works, but I’d also like to see a bit more of him at a tactical table.
Is it worth watching?
If you like things other than football, I’d say you need to watch this series. Especially because it’s not often that we have some kind of content showing the backstage of a football club. Those of us who are just fans, or just fans of the sport, have a somewhat distant relationship with the clubs, because we don’t know how they are run, how they act off the pitch, how negotiations are handled, etc. Because we usually depend on the press for information about the clubs. So when there’s a series like this that shows the day-to-day life of the club, the players, the coach, what training is like, how the team prepares for matches, how negotiations take place, the players’ interpersonal relationships, etc. It’s always a real treat for those of us who enjoy it.
And for those who don’t like football, I also recommend that you watch this kind of series at least once. Because maybe you’ll start to take an interest in sport from it. For example, I have a friend who is now passionate about Formula 1 because of the Netflix series Drive to Survive. Before that, she never really cared about any sport. So maybe this series could be the kick-start you need to get into the world of football.
Final Verdict: It’s a very cool series with a great production, which I think is worth watching by everyone. I still think it’s a shame that Arsenal didn’t win any competitions or get a place in the Champions League this season, but it was still great to see the team finish on a high. Perhaps in a few years’ time, Amazon will decide to make another season about the Gunners and I hope to see this team win something so that it can end on a more exciting note.
