Champions League: Round Three

Tomorrow is the day. Tomorrow is the day where I redeem myself.

The title of this post is called "Champions League: Round Three" for a reason. 

Round One: During the 2010 Champions League, I was in a packed Grad Club (I miss you) in London (I miss you, but less), drinking something probably awful (green tea beer), and I declared that I would buy a round if Barcelona beat Arsenal.

Yup, you read that right. I put my money on Arsenal.

Let me give you a back story to this. As I sat in the Grad Club, my knees up to my chin, eating deep fried oreos (God, I really miss the Grad Club), I was watching the game idly. You know that I don’t particularly care for Barca (or Arsenal, to be honest), and I was getting increasingly sick of everyone’s hard on for the stupid Spanish team. So, I turned to the three gentlemen beside me and declared, “I bet you guys a round that Arsenal will win.”

Now, these aren’t just any three guys watching Champions League instead of learning about MARC Standards. These are the type of guys who knock over beers in heated arguments about which EPL team has a better third string keeper. These are the type of guys who, if given 5 minutes, could rip up Wilson’s/Kuper’s/Horncastle’s (etc) greatest piece of work like an undergrad research essay. These are the type of guys, who debated the expectations and outcomes of The Score showing Serie A for close to two hours. These are the types of guys who raise their eyebrows when I even think TFC.

One immediately leaned forward to shake while the other two stared at me dumbfoundedly.

“I’m serious guys. Arsenal to win. No questions.”

“This game?”

“Yup.”

“Arsenal?”

"Yes."

"Against Barcelona?"

“Jesus, yes! Now or never. Shake.”

Needless to say, eventually I drank my words. Or, rather, they did.

And no one has let me live it down since. Let me put it this way, while writing this post I (honest to God) received this message from one of them:

“I'm pretty sure, when Barca is up 2 at half, that I can convince you to go double or nothing or maybe even triple.”

While he was referring to tomorrow's match, 2011 wasn't much better for me either...

Round Two: ... when Barca and Arsenal met again, so did the heckling from the peanut gallery. However, I being the mature adult that I am, ignore them (re: flipped them off). And, me still being the mature adult that I am, I don’t want to get into the score of that one leg.

In regards to my luck between 2010 and 2011, I can safely post this:

HOWEVER! However! That is all about to change! 

Round Three: My bad-luck-celona (that works better out loud, I promise), is over. The point of all this is that tomorrow, I will have full bragging rights, full redemption, full beer from Colin (which I probably won’t finish) because Milan WILL DESTROY BARCA.

That’s right! I am declaring it on my blog: Milan to beat Barcelona, beyond any shadow of a doubt. I have total and complete faith in the last surviving Italian team making it to the final. Where upon, we will reclaim our fourth spot. And eventually, Udinese will be back in Champions League. And that they too WILL DESTROY BARCELONA UNLIKE 2005. Vaffanculo.

Oh, I’m sorry, did you think this was not going to somehow really be about Udinese? Bless you.

Anyway, Milan to win. Simple of that. I'll collect your high fives tomorrow.

Hopp,

scm.