Twenty-two years is a long time to wait. Long enough to grow a child into an adult, long enough to watch an entire generation of supporters come and go, long enough to wonder, quietly, whether it would ever happen again.
On Tuesday night, Arsenal made sure the wait was worth every agonising second. The moment the final whistle confirmed the title was theirs, the Emirates erupted in a way that felt less like a celebration and more like a collective exhale. Relief, joy, and disbelief all tangled together at once.
The players, many of whom were toddlers the last time this club lifted the league trophy back in 2003, didn’t hold back. Martin Ødegaard, arms wide, sprinted towards the North Bank end, while Bukayo Saka, born just a year before that last title, dropped to his knees on the turf. It wasn’t theatrical. It looked genuine, raw, and thoroughly deserved.
For the fans, it was something else entirely. Supporters who had followed this team through the Emery years, through the Arteta rebuild, through the heartbreak of 2023 when City pipped them at the post, finally had their moment. One long-standing season ticket holder described it simply as
“the best night of my life, and I say that as a married man with three kids.”
Mikel Arteta, never one to lose his composure in public, couldn’t hide it this time. He stood on the pitch long after the final whistle, tie loosened, looking up at the stands with something that resembled disbelief. His project, quietly mocked in its early days, has delivered the biggest prize in English football.
The scenes spilled well beyond north London. Fans gathered outside the ground until well past midnight, singing, crying, and doing the sort of things you only do once every two decades. Police reported the celebrations were overwhelmingly peaceful, which, given the scale of the crowd, says something about the mood of the night.
Arsenal are champions again. The real question now is whether this team, still young and still hungry, is only just getting started.
