A chat about the furor over several Gunners being withdrawn from international duty.
As you’re reading this, we are probably about three quarters of the way through the international break. And honestly, the timing of this little intermission has been quite welcome. Because as the players departed for World Cup qualifiers and friendlies and I found myself wishing they could just get some much-needed rest, I realized that I too was tired. Tired of writing pieces around it, but just generally tired of football as well. The volume of games these days is such that it’s genuinely exhausting to watch.
I know I’m not the only one who feels that way, either. I know plenty of people who have used this week and last to go on trips, to focus on other hobbies, to just unplug from the sport entirely. The fans have taken a break from football.
Theoretically, that should also mean taking a break from the toxic discourse around football. But unfortunately, the manufactured outrage generator that is social media never takes a day off. There is always nonsense to spout, engagement to reel in, cynicism to spread. And more unfortunately, it is rather difficult to undo the decades-long change in our collective brain chemistry that makes us so susceptible to this bad faith. So as we prepare to embark on the final leg of what will hopefully be a successful journey, I wanted to address the latest iteration of this poisonous phenomenon.
It has been a long, grueling season (unless you’re Manchester United, that is). Arsenal have currently played 50 matches in all competitions, with a maximum of 15 still ahead. They’ve just made the Carabao Cup final, are into the quarterfinals of both the Champions League and FA Cup with good chances of progressing further in those competitions, and will likely need to win several more games to clinch the Premier League trophy. To say the Gunners’ star players must be absolutely knackered is an understatement.
But duty calls. Having one of the best squads in football means Arsenal employ a swath of players whom a plethora of national teams rely on. So as the club calendar paused, several players were called up to represent their countries.
However, it would appear we have reached an interesting juncture in the cycle of international football where the interests of clubs and national teams have briefly aligned. With the World Cup just under three months away, the vast majority of teams know whether they’ve qualified. Those that have booked their place in the tournament know that injuries to their best players now are likely to preclude them from participating in the competition, thereby hampering a team’s chance of success. The risk of making footballers, with several months of football in their legs already, being made to participate in tune-up friendlies heavily outweighs the benefit of that endeavor.
Just imagine it for a second. A national team manager calls up a pillar of the squad he has in mind for the trip to the United States this summer. Despite this player featuring in several competitions for their club and clocking thousands of minutes already, they are trotted out in a meaningless dead rubber against representatives of a country on the other side of the world. Then, as they’re trying to sprint back towards their own goal, they pull up with a bad hamstring issue. Or maybe they’re clattered into by an overeager opponent and bend their knee the wrong way during the collision. Just like that, they’re out of the World Cup.
That decision to make the key man play in the first place would be scrutinized ruthlessly, and rightly so. It would be a scandal, a catastrophe, a first-ballot Hall of Shame entry of a debacle. Heads would be called for and the national team would be lambasted incessantly for allowing such absurdity.
Most reasonable people would have agreed with that if you’d asked them for their opinion on the matter a month ago. Show me a person who doesn’t think the current football schedule takes too great a toll on players and I’ll show you someone who doesn’t really care about the sport. Before this international break, giving some players a rest was simply common sense.
But then, Arsenal benefited from that common sense. And everyone lost their minds.
Entering the break, multiple Gunners were withdrawn from their national teams. Eberechi Eze and Jurriën Timber, who both missed the Carabao Cup final through injury, were given the fortnight off after initially being called up by their national teams. Then Gabriel and William Saliba also withdrew, citing knee and ankle issues respectively. Leandro Trossard was spared from joining up with Belgium for similar reasons. A few days into the break, England sent Noni Madueke, Declan Rice, and Bukayo Saka back to Arsenal’s care, followed by the departures of Piero Hincapié and Martín Zubimendi’s departures from Ecuador’s and Spain’s camps respectively.
Now, bearing in mind the reasoning I just laid out, those various national teams’ decisions to leave out their Arsenal-affiliated players makes total sense. England, the Netherlands, Brazil, France, Ecuador, and Spain have all qualified for the World Cup. Timber (who, again, is currently injured), Gabriel, Saliba, Rice, and Zubimendi have all registered over 3,000 minutes in all competitions this season. Saka is only three halves of football from that mark and still just a year removed from the worst injury of his career so far. And they are all vital players for their national teams. Of course they weren’t risked so close to the sport’s most famous tournament.
And yet the usual suspects were in rare form, kicking up the performative outrage to levels that were astounding, even for them. Some clamored for the relevant national teams to refrain from calling up those Arsenal players. Gabriel Agbonlahor among others advocated for a change in the rules to enable the banning of players from club games for pulling out of international duty without just cause, shamelessly parroting Twitter trolls. Who would be in charge of enforcing that rule or how it would be determined that a player wrongly withdrew from international duty weren’t important. All that mattered was punishing Arsenal with impunity. My personal favorite bit of whining came from a Spurs podcaster named “Flav Bateman”, who boldly proclaimed that “no other argument can be made” but that the Arsenal players that withdrew have let their country down.
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And of course, all this forced backlash is steeped in deeply rich hypocrisy. Because Arsenal are hardly the first team to benefit from players withdrawing from international duty. Sir Alex Ferguson did it all the time back in Manchester United’s heyday. The legendary manager infamously despised international breaks, and has even been accused of forcing players to withdraw from representing their countries.
Manchester City players have also withdrawn from international duty under similar circumstances. Just this past October, Norway sent Erling Haaland home due to a “particularly tight match schedule”. In November of 2024, five City players — Matheus Nunes, Manuel Akanji, Jack Grealish, Phil Foden, and Jérémy Doku — exited their national camp as Pep Guardiola faced a potential injury crisis and a demanding upcoming schedule.
And yet, Fergie’s United didn’t face the widespread scrutiny that Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal have. Sky Sports’ Twitter account didn’t rack up Community Notes attempting to spin the narrative in the most transparently dastardly way possible against City, who stand accused by the Premier League of the most egregious cheating in English top flight history. But when Arsenal do it, the England manager has to go into extended detail on the fitness reasons why Rice and Saka were sent home, despite the fact that five non-Arsenal players also departed the camp.
But such is the hold that this Arsenal obsession has over English football. Lost in the hysteria, the obvious addiction to making everything about finding a way to criticize the Gunners, is one simple fact: there are rules dictating who has control over player movement during international breaks. And as the detractors either don’t know or are ignoring as they chase clicks, that isn’t the clubs.
According to Annexe 01 of FIFA’s Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players, release of players called up to national teams by those players’ clubs is mandatory. The provisions of Annexe 01 also stipulate that players are generally obligated to respond affirmatively to selection for their national teams, give specific timeframes in which players must join and depart national team camps, and proclaim that an association may impose punishments, including bans from future call-ups, on players that do not comply. Additionally, national teams have the right to medically examine injured players if they so choose.
What all this means is that it was solely England’s decision to send Rice, Saka, and Madueke from the team. It was solely Brazil’s decision to leave out Gabriel, solely France’s decision to give Saliba a rest, solely Spain’s decision to let Zubimendi put his feet up this week. Arsenal and the players have no say on how the national teams construct their rosters for these intervals. This time, everyone just wanted the same thing.
Elsewhere, Kai Havertz started both of Germany’s friendlies against Switzerland and Ghana. Riccardo Calafiori played the full match against Northern Ireland and 120 minutes plus stoppage time as Italy lost a World Cup berth to Bosnia-Herzegovina. Viktor Gyökeres was on the pitch for the entirety of both of Sweden’s World Cup qualification playoff matches, scoring four goals and cementing himself in national folklore in the process. Christian Nørgaard also featured heavily in playoff games while David Raya, Ben White, Cristhian Mosquera, and Gabriel Martinelli all played in friendlies for their countries. Why didn’t Arsenal deviously pull those players, some of whom are quite critical to the club’s silverware chances this season, from those games?
Because those calls weren’t Arsenal’s to make, and there were good reasons for those players to see out the international break with their countries. Calafiori, Gyökeres, and Nørgaard were needed in critical moments. Havertz is still ramping up to full fitness and probably benefitted from the extra minutes. And the rest are attempting to stake their claims as starters for the nations, if not simply just trying to earn selection for the World Cup rosters. They weren’t in the red zone physically, Thomas Tuchel was forced to explain in the cases of Saka and Rice. They didn’t come off injured for teams that weren’t playing matches of consequence as Madueke and Hincapié did.
And that brings me to perhaps the most concerning aspect of all this: the assignment of some exceptional level of bad faith to the Gunners for circumstances they wouldn’t begrudge another club for, based off nothing but a club crest they happen not to like. The same people who would nod along with the conclusion that footballers are just playing far too many games are now foaming at the mouth and accusing a specific collection of players of faking it. Eze, Madueke, Timber, and Hincapié — whom we all saw pick up injuries on live television — are being depicted as purposefully declining to represent their nations. When you drill right down to it, the main source of frustration among many right now appears to be the fact that Arsenal’s chances of suffering a significant injury or two as they aim to secure the Premier League trophy has declined.
That’s really what this is all about at the end of the day: people are once again upset that Arsenal are on the cusp of undeniable status. With seven games left, the Gunners are overwhelming favorites to be crowned league champions for the first time in over two decades. They have a relatively smooth path to the later stages of the Champions League. On top of that, they are strong candidates in the FA Cup as well. It’s not looking good for the “warra trophy” crowd.
And it looks like the Gunners could stay in the upper echelon of football for years to come. Key players signing are new contracts. Arsenal looking prepared to make another splash in the transfer market this summer, and have been linked to immensely talented attackers. Incredible academy graduates like Myles Lewis-Skelly, Ethan Nwaneri, and Max Dowman are bursting onto the scene and making their cases to be part of the first team. The banter era looks close to an end. By the looks of it, it might not return for quite some time.
The trophies are coming. Of that I am sure. But until they get here, the detractors will get their licks in while they can. They will fire off manufactured criticisms for as long as possible until it requires more shamelessness than even they can muster.
That’s why when Arsenal become the best set piece team in England, they’re vilified for it. Even as the likes of Chelsea and Manchester United are applauded for also being effective from corners.
That’s why when Arsenal’s Twitter account posts hype videos before important matches, they’re chastised for being “cringe”. Even though literally every other Premier League team does the same.
That’s why when Arsenal leave no stone unturned, adopting overlooked methods into their game model to become the best team in England, they’re branded as cheats. Even when some of the pundits doing so owe all their trophies to Roman Abramovich, and while rumors of a 60-point deduction for City swirl in the background.
And that’s why when Arsenal players are withdrawn by their national teams, outrage ensues and the masses bay for blood. Even when they are far from the first title-challenging team to benefit from it.
Personally, I’m learning to take this widespread fixation on my club as a compliment. Because in an odd way, it is flattering. More and more people care more about hating on Arsenal than they do about supporting their own club. There is power in that.
Even now, you can tell that most detractors know they’re forcing it. They’re trying too hard to get attention. They’re too quick to hide behind accusations of being rattled these days. They don’t believe what they’re saying anymore. Just like they don’t believe they soon won’t be able to laugh at Arsenal.
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