Friendly: Arsenal 1-0 AC Milan
So, we are off.
Pre-season, that hazy half-realm between rest and rhythm, is done. Not with a roar, nor a ripple — but a hum. A sequence of matches where meaning lives not in scorelines, but in sinews stretched, lungs tested, ideas rehearsed. The results? A sideshow. When penalty shootouts outlive their purpose and twist a win into a loss, you know the truth: these are trials, not trophies.
But there was enough. Enough to feel the stirrings. Enough to light the match
The Boy Who Dared
Bukayo Saka — darling of Hale End, prince of the right — had the final word in a contest that, in truth, was never in much doubt. A prod, a ghosted run, a knowing finish off Jakub Kiwior’s curling invitation. Arsenal 1, Milan 0 — at least on paper.
But beneath the paper lay patterns.
Mikel Arteta, eyes fixed not on this game but the ones to come, scattered his new toys judiciously. Just the one in the starting XI — Christian Nørgaard, composed and combative, folding in neatly alongside Declan Rice in a double pivot that felt no strain. Yet it was the teenager between them, Ethan Nwaneri, who captured the breeze and ran with it.
Given the keys to the No.10 role, Nwaneri stumbled at first — but then, something clicked. A nutmeg here, a volley there. Skinning Strahinja Pavlović as if peeling back time. He was inches, fingertips, heartbeats away from a pre-season goal for the scrapbook.
Calafiori nearly added one himself, a header arcing past despairing gloves only to find the head of Pavlović on the line. But the breakthrough would wait — for Saka’s moment, for Kiwior’s vision, for the inevitable.
A Glimpse of the Spine
The second half brought reshuffles, rehearsals, revelations. Zubimendi entered the fray — the Spaniard’s first Arsenal minutes, silky and understated — and with him came Odegaard, captain and craftsman. Add Rice, and you sense it already: the shape of what’s to come.
Together they tilted the game, pressing the Italians deeper and deeper until there was almost nothing left of them. Havertz buzzed. Trossard twisted. Merino, on as another fresh body, drew gasps with a header that Torriani palmed away at full stretch.
But the brightest spark? A 15-year-old. Max Dowman — scarcely old enough to take GCSEs, yet stepping onto this stage like it was his to own. A mazy run, a swipe just wide, and a message whispered softly into Arteta’s ear: the future is coming. Quickly.
Foundations Laid
Arteta won’t decorate the walls with this one. But in the quiet corners of his mind, he will file it under “encouraging.”
Nørgaard looked the part. Zubimendi slipped in like he belonged. The Rice-Odegaard-Zubimendi triangle showed flickers of telepathy, the kind that can conquer fields. Ethan Nwaneri gave cause for dreams. And on that right-hand side, White and Saka — once separated too often last season — were finally reunited in harmony.
This was pre-season. Barely more than a sketch. But sketches, in the right hands, become masterpieces.
Victoria Concordia Crescit