It's Not Done

Arsenal's stadium in the rain. (pic CC 2.0 by Paul Hudson.) It had all come apart. It was supposed to be easy for Arsenal, the 140-year-old British football club from North London. They'd been on top of the Premier League for months now, a final christening in a years-long attempt to reach the top and win the league trophy for the first time in over two decades. Three years in a row they had come in second, beaten and bullied largely by Manchester City, a club who had dominated the league in the last decade, using a seemingly-endless supply of cash from the Abu Dhabi royal family to buy a team that seemed unstoppable. But this year, Arsenal had been winning while City was stumbling. That is, until recently. What seemed like destiny, at this moment in late April, had unraveled. Arsenal had been losing ground on what had been a significant lead on the title after a series of unfortunate draws and last-minute losses, while City had corrected their previous errors and was now on a…